“Some news that may interest you, Mr. Quinn. A black man named Tremont is at the Four Spot bar on Clinton Square talking about shooting a politician. They say he’s wearing two-tone shoes. He’s with an older man named George who’s talking about shooting people for throwing rocks. The manager is trying to detain them both till the police get there.”
“The anarchists have descended,” Quinn said.
The Mayor smiled. “Ask them to stop by headquarters and talk to Chief Tobin.” The phone rang and the Mayor answered. Then he said to Quinn, “Now a racial fight has broken out at the Four Spot and someone threw Molotov cocktails into it.”
Quinn stood up. “So the revolution begins. Do you want to go down and make some notes?”
“I might be assassinated,” the Mayor said.
“There’s always that risk in a revolution, Mr. Mayor,” Quinn said.
When George stopped singing he walked a while in silence, then said, “What was all that back at Johnny’s bar? That was some fuss.”
“I’d say it was the hand of God that got us out of there,” Matt said, “and God was especially handy with Tremont. Did you hear him talk about shooting a politician?”
“I didn’t know what the hell he was saying,” George said.
“The bartender did. He called the police and I’m sure they’re looking for Tremont right now, don’t you think, Tremont?”
“Cops been lookin’ for me half my life.”
“Those bartenders wanted to keep you there for the cops. We get to a phone I’ll call somebody to come get us, figure the next move.”
“Who do you want to shoot, Tremont?” George asked.
“Nobody, Georgie, don’t wanna shoot nobody. Some guy talked to me about it, that’s all.”
“And he gave you a gun,” Matt said.
Tremont considered that. “Gotta get that gun. It’s sittin’ down there in the bus station and somebody maybe gonna get at it before I do. Zuki, could be. He don’t know where it’s at, but I ain’t sure he don’t.”
“What do you want to do with it?”
“Rub off my fingerprints. Put it someplace Zuki can’t do nothin’ to me about it. Shove it down a sewer.”
Dorsey’s Cafe was locked and its lights were out. A fire from another Molotov cocktail had left ashes on the wet sidewalk, and part of Dorsey’s front wall was scorched. This was the last black bar on the urban devastation that was Broadway, a few vital blocks for nightlife that used to be called Little Harlem. The Black Elks Club was a couple of blocks up, but nothing started there till ten o’clock and then it went all night. The Taft Hotel’s eight rooms were gone, and so were Martha’s bar, a great spot for music, and the Carterer Mission, a haven for bums black and white. Union Station was boarded up, no more trains in this town. Most white saloons and restaurants had gone broke or been bought out by the city to build parking lots for stores that had also gone bust while they waited to park; and the horserooms, the pool crowd, the bowlers, the gamblers, and the hot mattress hotels had all abdicated to more fertile turf. Downtown was emptying into the suburbs. Broadway’s streetlights were on but nobody was walking the street except these four pilgrims.
“Can’t get no drink here,” Tremont said.
“Whole street is closed,” Matt said.
“Albany never closes,” George said.
“You right, George,” Tremont said. “Hapsy’s on Bleecker Street, he’s always open.”
“We should get to the DeWitt for the concert,” Vivian said.
“You’ll get there,” Matt said. “I don’t want you alone on the street.”
“What concert?” Tremont asked.
“Cody Mason,” said Vivian. “It’s his last concert. He’s real sick.”
“Cody is sick? Gotta go hear him. You need a ticket?”
“They’re twenty dollars,” Vivian said.
“I don’t have twenty.”
“You don’t need it, Tremont,” George said. “I’ll go in with you. We’ll back in and they’ll think we’re coming out.”
“All right, Georgie boy, all right, you got the moves. What do you think, Bish, cops gonna come to the concert to get me? You see how that bartender at the Four Spot went after Roy? And one tried to get Zuki?”
“They’ll round up everybody, including me, and ask questions tomorrow,” Matt said.
“You think they’d arrest me, Father?”
“I think you’re safe, Vivian.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
“We should get off Broadway, walk the side streets.”
They went up Columbia to James Street, then down James to State where Matt held everybody at the corner until he checked the street. Helmeted cops with shotguns were at State and Broadway, and also on two corners at State and Pearl. North Pearl was blocked to northbound traffic by two police cars and Matt could hear the blurts of squawk talk on the police radios. Three cars and a few people were moving up State. Matt hustled his charges across State to Green Street, which was as empty as Broadway but narrow, less traveled. When they were a block in on Green they heard a siren.
“Siren,” Tremont said. “Probably goin’ to the Four Spot.”
“I know how you can get rid of that gun,” Matt said. “Call Doc Fahey, turn it over to him, tell him how you got it.”
“Fahey the cop?”
“A good cop. He knows you and he knows me a little, and he’s good friends with Quinn. George knows him real well, don’t you, George? Doc Fahey?”
“Vincent Fahey,” said George. “They call him the Doc. He’s one of the salts of the earth. When Peg dropped dead putting on her hat going to church, he’s the one I called. Dan wasn’t around, you can’t keep track of his gallivantin’ around the world, so I called Doc and up he came, in ten minutes. They don’t make ’em any better. First water, first water.”
“Surrendering that gun to Doc is just an idea, Tremont,” Matt said. “But you gotta talk to somebody soon, and I mean the cops. Quinn can get you a lawyer.”
“Every time I get a lawyer I end up in jail.”
“The cops see you with that gun tonight you’re a target.”
“Long as I wipe off my prints so Zuki can’t put it no place and say I shot somebody I didn’t. Zuki’s a bad ass.”
“You said the gun’s in a black bag. Cops know gun cases. Put it in something else.”
“It folds up pretty good. Don’t hafta look like a gun.”
At the Greyhound station Tremont searched four trash barrels and found a burlap sack with oil stains. In the lavatory he soaped up a few paper towels and put them in the sack. He looked in the mirror, buttoned his collar, tucked in his shirt, pulled up his pants and tightened his belt. He stroked a kink out of the brim of his fedora and buttoned his double-breasted suitcoat. He went out to the locker and slid the gun case into the sack. Then he rejoined his drinking buddies. Spruced up. Armed.
They went south on Green Street toward Madison, the city moving into early darkness and who knows what else, and George felt a new urgency to get where they were going, wherever the hell it was. Vivian took his arm and George squeezed her with his arm and remembered that the way you grip a woman is a defining factor. Peg, or no, was it Vivian, whoever it was, was beautiful on his arm, and keeping a grip on her was the right thing. You had to squeeze her, let her know. Is Snyder’s Lake part of it? Make the right moves and you’ll be all right. The saints of history will praise your behavior, whatever the hell it is. George had a feeling it had something to do with love.
“He was so alive,” Vivian would tell Quinn later. “He sang as we went and he walked me down that dark street with a bounce in his step. We seemed to dance along the sidewalk. When I met him near City Hall in the afternoon he didn’t know my name or anybody’s name, and now I just loved him because he knew so much and didn’t care what he didn’t know. Green Street was poorly lit and it looked truly dangerous to me, but he wasn’t afraid of anything. I was on the lookout for police and crazy bigots with bombs but George was saying, ‘Bing Crosby came down here and he sang “Shine.” I got him a piano.’”