‘I needed to talk to you.’
‘Gone be all hell breaking loose before long,’ Gaylord said.
‘Looks that way.’
‘Better get your saying said and then be gone from here.’
‘Fine with me.’
Gaylord waved him toward the back room. ‘Come on, then,’ he said quickly. ‘I wants to be out of here before the trouble starts.’
Ben followed him quickly into the back room and took a seat opposite Gaylord’s small wooden desk.
‘I just need to know as much as I can about Bluto,’ he said.
‘Nothing much to know,’ Gaylord said. He placed his hands behind his head and leaned back in chair. ‘He come in here sometime.’
‘Just to play pool?’ Ben asked.
‘That’s right,’ Gaylord said.
‘Did he have any friends around here?’ Ben asked. ‘People he hung around with?’
Gaylord shook his head. ‘Not that I ever seen.’
‘And as far as you know he didn’t do any work?’
‘Once in a while I let him rack the balls,’ Gaylord said. ‘I paid him a little for that. Sometimes he do an errand or two for somebody. Deliver something down the street.’
‘Who’d he do that sort of thing for?’
‘Anybody that asked him,’ Gaylord said. ‘I guess they paid him whatever they wanted to. But like I say before, he didn’t have a regular job, far as I know.’
Ben shifted to a different direction. ‘Was he ever rough, violent?’
Gaylord looked at Ben wonderingly. ‘Bluto? Violent? Naw, he ain’t like that. He ain’t got the sense to be rough.’
‘Did you ever see him act mean to anybody?’
Gaylord shook his head. ‘Nah, he ain’t like that.’ He chuckled. ‘He think he a cop, you know. He always trying to act big, like he a cop. He say he deputized. He had a little badge to prove it.’
‘Police badge?’
‘Yeah, look like.’
‘Did he carry it with him?’
‘All the time.’
‘When was the last time you saw it?’
‘When I seen Bluto the last time, I guess,’ Gaylord said. He thought a moment. ‘Yeah, he had it on. Pinned to his shirt, like always.’
‘Did he say who deputized him?’ Ben asked immediately.
‘One of the Langleys, I guess it was,’ Gaylord said. ‘Probably that silly one. Tod. Nobody else would do a fool thing like that.’
‘Did you ever see Bluto with the Langleys?’
Gaylord nodded. ‘Once in a while. They liked to play with him. Kid him, you know?’ He frowned. ‘They liked to watch him act a fool. They tell him he a regular policeman. They tell him they gone find a woman for him, so’s he can git married, so they can be lots of new little Blutos for the police force.’
‘When was the last time you saw them together?’ Ben asked immediately.
Gaylord thought for a moment. ‘Been awhile, I reckon.’
‘Try to remember exactly,’ Ben said insistently.
‘Mor ’n a week,’ Gaylord said. ‘Maybe mor ’n two weeks.’
‘Where did you see them?’
‘Right here,’ Gaylord said. ‘Right here in the poolhall.’
‘What were they doing in here?’
‘Jes’ hanging around,’ Gaylord said with a shrug. ‘Sometimes I think they must love the colored folks, the way they hangs around them.’ He laughed. ‘Naw, they looking for something bad, something they can bust up, card game or something like that.’
‘Did they talk to Bluto?’ Ben asked.
Gaylord shook his head. ‘Not that I remember,’ he said, ‘and I usually watches them boys real close. They give me a bad feeling when they come ’round. Like a chill in my bones.’
Ben allowed his eyes to roam the cluttered back room silently. Scores of old license plates had been nailed to the walls, one of them going back to 1921. There were pinup-girl calendars mingled with aging photos of black athletes: Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson.
Gaylord watched Ben silently, until their eyes met once again. Then he leaned forward slowly. ‘You better be going now,’ he said. ‘The boys up front liable to say something.’
‘Say what?’ Ben asked.
‘Say maybe ole Gaylord’s a little too close with a white policeman.’
‘Are you afraid of that?’
Gaylord smiled nervously. ‘’Bout the only thing I is afraid of, you want to know the truth.’ He stood up immediately. ‘Les’ go, now. This place ain’t gone be too good for you to be at in a few minutes.’
Ben did not move. ‘The little girl,’ he said. ‘She was raped. Could Bluto have done something like that?’
Gaylord shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he could. He was always pulling at hisself, you know what I mean?’
Ben nodded.
‘Right out in the open,’ Gaylord added. ‘Pulling at hisself. I’d say to him, I’d say, “Stop that, Bluto. You out in the open. You want to do that, you go on home.”’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But he’d just smile that big ole smile of his and keep on pulling, like he couldn’t figure out why everybody wadn’t doing it all the time.’
Gaylord walked to the door of his office and opened it. ‘Don’t come back here no more,’ he said quietly. ‘It ain’t good for nobody.’
Ben stepped out into the poolhall. It was empty now, all the players gone.
‘Look at that, now,’ Gaylord said disgustedly. ‘’Nuther one them demonstrations coming down Fourth Avenue. All they do is ruin business.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t figure it out, why these colored folk wants to be mixed up with the white people.’ He looked at Ben wonderingly. ‘It just don’t make no sense to me. You know why? ’Cause white people, they don’t ever look like they’re having any fun.’
TWENTY-SIX
Ben headed across the street toward his car. At the end of the avenue, he could see the firemen darting frantically around their engines. Some were busily unspooling yards of thick hosing, while others rushed to uncap the few hydrants which dotted the streets around the park. For a moment he stood in the middle of the avenue and stared at them wonderingly. Then suddenly he heard voices in the distance behind him, turned and saw the first demonstrators come over the hill. The few stragglers who were still on the avenue rushed down the side streets, and for a moment Ben stood alone, his body frozen between the unmoving lines of firemen and police and the dark, slowly rising wave that continued to flow smoothly over the hill.
He glanced down the avenue. Luther was peering at him, his hand cupped over his eyes to protect them from the harsh afternoon light. Only a few feet away Breedlove and Daniels stood together, staring at him too, and for an instant, Ben had the sensation that everyone’s attention was focused intensely upon him, the firemen and police who stood motionlessly in the summer air, his fellow detectives, Breedlove and Daniels on one corner, the Langleys on the other, even McCorkindale, perched on top of one of the fire trucks that blocked the end of the avenue like a blood-drenched wall.
Finally, Luther’s voice broke the air, as his short, stubby arm motioned to Ben frantically.
‘Get out the way!’ he shouted. ‘Get on down here!’
Ben did not move.
‘Get on down here!’ Luther called wildly, his voice barely audible in the distance.
Ben stared at him without moving, his mind hurling through a thousand calculations.
