‘They kept me right here most of the time,’ Ryan said. He smiled thinly. ‘They had me running back and forth from the cells, bringing the girls upstairs.’ He drew in a long, weary breath. ‘Is there something you want from Property?’ he asked.
Ben’s eyes surveyed the rows of metal shelving which lined the walls behind Ryan’s desk. They were almost entirely empty.
‘Looks like they cleaned you out,’ he said.
‘Just the guns,’ Ryan told him.
‘Yeah, I know. I saw McCorkindale signing them out.’ Ben paused. ‘We buried a little girl in Gracehill this evening,’ he said. ‘They sent a man over from the Highway Department. Patterson was surprised it wasn’t you.’
‘Well, that’s because I do all the colored cemeteries.’
Ben leaned forward slightly. ‘Why’s that, Kelly?’
Ryan looked at him evenly. ‘You never struck me as the nosy type, Ben.’
Ben shrugged. ‘I was just wondering,’ he said.
‘Wondering about what, exactly?’
Ben did not answer.
‘Wondering why I get all the nigger work?’ Kelly asked. There was a bitter edge in his voice. ‘Is that what you were wondering?’
‘I guess.’
Ryan sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. Well, what have you heard?’
‘Nothing,’ Ben said lamely.
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘Well, I know that you used to work Bearmatch.’
Ryan said nothing.
‘That little girl we buried,’ Ben added. ‘We found her in that old ballfield off Twenty-third Street.’
Ryan remained silent, but Ben could see something stirring behind his eyes.
‘And I thought you might be able to help me.’
Ryan turned away sharply. ‘I haven’t worked Bearmatch in two years. If you want to know something, go ask the Langleys. It’s strictly their beat now.’
‘I talked to them,’ Ben said. ‘They weren’t much help.’
Ryan said nothing. He kept his eyes averted slightly.
Ben continued to stand over him, staring down. He could feel an odd tumult building in Ryan’s mind, and for a moment he simply stood by silently and let it grow.
‘Bearmatch was my first assignment,’ Ryan said as he turned slowly toward Ben, his voice almost wistful as he continued, ‘I was fresh as a daisy.’ He started to go on, then stopped himself and drew his eyes quickly to the left, as if he were looking for a way out. ‘I feel old now,’ he added finally. ‘I don’t know why.’ He said nothing else.
Again, Ben waited, allowing the silence to lengthen slowly. When it seemed stretched to the limit, he broke it.
‘You want to have a drink with me?’ he asked.
Ryan’s eyes flashed toward him. ‘I haven’t had a drink with a cop since they took me off Bearmatch,’ he said.
Ben smiled quietly. ‘Want to have one now?’
Ryan looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘A little girl,’ Ben told him softly. ‘A little colored girl.’
It was a small, honky-tonk bar, nestled among the raw metal clutter of two steel mills. Outside, the air quivered with the roar of the blast furnaces, but inside there was only the jukebox and the low murmur of the factory workers who lined the bar itself or gathered in loose clusters around tiny wooden tables.
Ben guided Ryan to a booth in the far back corner, ordered two beers, then offered him a cigarette.
Ryan took it immediately. ‘This is a real night out with the boys for me,’ he said with a mocking laugh.
Ben lit the cigarette and Ryan inhaled deeply.
‘I hope there’s nobody working undercover in this place,’ he said as he let the smoke filter slowly out of his month. ‘You don’t want to be seen with me.’
Ben lit his own cigarette and eased himself back into the padded seat. ‘Why’s that?’
Ryan smiled sardonically and took another drag on the cigarette. ‘I worked Bearmatch before the Langleys took it over. You might say I handed it over to them.’ He started to continue, but the barman stepped up with the beers, and he stopped until he had deposited them on the table and returned to the bar. Then he lifted his glass. ‘Here’s to the Chief.’
They drank together for a moment, then Ryan set his half-empty glass down on the table and looked at Ben squarely.
‘What exactly do you want to know?’ he asked.
‘Like I said before, I’m working a case,’ Ben told him, a murder. Little girl without a name. In Bearmatch.’
Ryan lifted his glass again, his eyes peering steadily over the rim. ‘You said you talked to the Langleys?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What’d they say?’
‘That they don’t bother with nigger murders.’
Kelly laughed derisively. ‘No shit.’ He took a quick gulp from the glass then returned it to the table. ‘Those two are wolves. There’s no telling for sure what they’ve been doing over in Bearmatch. Nobody keeps an eye on them.’ He leaned forward slightly, his hand squeezing the handle of the mug. ‘But everybody says they’ve really been kicking ass lately. Busting places up, harassing everybody. Sometimes they make five or six arrests a day over there.’
‘Who are they arresting?’
‘Anybody they want to,’ Ryan said. ‘From bootleggers to jay-walkers, I guess.’ He took a quick sip. ‘You know what I think? I think the Langleys feed on Bearmatch.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘After me, I guess the Chief figured he needed guys like them for that particular beat.’ He took another drink, then rolled the nearly empty glass rhythmically in his hands.
A jukebox started up at the front of the bar, and the growling voice of Ernest Tubb swept over the room with ‘I’m Walking the Floor Over You.’
For a while, Ryan listened to the lyrics, his eyes fixed on a flashing Pabst Blue Ribbon sign near the center of the bar.
‘I lost my head,’ he said at last, his voice almost in a whisper. ‘I forgot where I was.’ He finished the beer, then signaled for another. The barman brought it over immediately. Ryan took a quick sip, then fastened his eyes on Ben, as if trying to read something written on his soul.
‘Like I said before,’ he began finally, ‘it was the first thing they gave me. I was fresh to the work. They gave me Bearmatch, and I took it serious. I walked the beat, Ben, walked it like a real cop, you know?’ He laughed. ‘There ain’t an old lady in Bearmatch I didn’t help across the street.’ He laughed again, a thin, high laugh, tense and edgy. ‘Anyway, I come across this young girl one day.’ He shook his head. Her name was Memora.’ His eyes brightened somewhat. ‘They have wonderful names, the colored people. Her baby sister was named Neopoli-tana. After that ice cream, I guess, the one with strips of strawberry and chocolate and vanilla.’ He shrugged halfheartedly. ‘Anyway, I’d run across her just about every day. She’d be tending this little patch of flowers in the front yard. I’d say hello, and she’d say hello. Before long I started taking a rest in front of her house. We’d talk and talk.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘She was the most beautiful thing in the world and I …’ He stopped, and his eyes dropped hack down toward the glass. ‘And I got quite a feeling for her.’ He looked up quickly. ‘You know what I mean?’
Ben nodded.
Ryan smiled mournfully. ‘You don’t know nothing until you know a person. You may have an idea about something, ‘but until you get to know somebody, you don’t know what you feel about anything.’ Once again he fell silent, his eyes studying Ben’s face. ‘You know what I’m saying?’
