Karp had been right. There was an armed robber who had been released from Attica at just the right time. And who looked right. And who had the right name. Dunbar patted his gun, unconsciously, and entered the fetid hallway of 563, heading for Apartment 505, the last known address of Preston Elvis.
Dunbar was about to ask the girl who opened the door if her momma or daddy was home, until he saw her swelling belly and the little boy who clung to her pink housecoat. This thin child was the lady of the house. He flashed his shield.
“Police. Are you Mrs. Elvis?”
“What you want? I ain’t done nothin’.”
“Could I come in?”
Silently, she backed away from the doorway. Mother and child stared at him with liquid, sad brown eyes. The living room was the same as all the others he had been in. A lumpy couch-this one was green plastic-and a big color TV. A game show was blaring: a capering man was giving things away to white people.
“That’s a nice new TV, there,” said Dunbar. “Preston got that for you, did he?”
“Who?”
“Preston Elvis. This guy,” said Dunbar, showing the mug shot. “He lives here, right?”
“No, nobody live here, jus us.”
“But, he comes here a lot, doesn’t he? I mean I could find out lots of ways, but it’s easier if you tell me. And, shit, honey, I ain’t from welfare. I don’t give a rat’s ass who lives here or when. I just need to talk to him.”
“He ain’t been ’round for a long while,” she said, sullenly.
Dunbar looked through the apartment. There was a pair of men’s shoes near the couch. The bedroom and bathroom were empty, but there were male clothes scattered around and in the closet, and there were recently used shaving things in the bathroom.
He went back to the woman. The boy had returned to watching TV.
“What’s your name, girl?”
“Vera. Higgs.”
“OK, Vera. I’ll tell you the truth, now. I don’t want to take you downtown. I don’t want to take your little boy away. And I definitely don’t want to tell the welfare that a man’s been living here. OK? But all that is gonna come down, if I don’t get to talk with Preston real soon? So tell me, where’s he at?”
“He workin’. He ain’t done nothin’.”
“Right, and where does he work?”
“I don know. He never tell me shit about what he be up to. Someplace, down in the city. No lie, Mister, I don know.” Her voice became shrill and tears started.
Dunbar believed her. He thought, OK, Sherlock, time to play detective. What he didn’t want was to have to stake out this shithole, maybe for hours or days even, if Elvis decided not to come home for a while. He looked more closely at the miserable dwelling, opening drawers, peering into cabinets, willing something to pop out at him. There was a pile of newspapers on the kitchen table. Idly, Dunbar picked one up and glanced at the headline, something about black leaders selling out their third-world brothers in the struggle against imperialism. Late-breaking news. Then something clicked.
He showed the paper to the woman. “Who reads this paper, you?”
She shrugged. “He bring them here.”
“He ever talk about a dude name of Mandeville Louis? Or Stack?” Shrug. Dunbar said, “I’ll be back.” He left the apartment and rushed down the stairs. It could be a coincidence that Preston Elvis had lying around his apartment twenty or thirty copies of the Claremont Press, the same newspaper that Mandeville Louis had worked for. But somehow Dunbar doubted it.
“Mister Barlow? Emerson Dunbar,” said Dunbar, showing his ID. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”
The editorial offices of the Claremont Press occupied a storefront on the avenue of the same name, and consisted of a small shop immediately off the street, where you could buy the Press and a selection of books and records, or place classified ads; and, behind a glass door, one large room, which held a jumble of battered desks, filing cabinets, and other necessaries of journalism. Dunbar was standing at one of these desks, talking to James Barlow, the managing editor of the Claremont Press.
Barlow, a chubby, tan man with an Afro and ferocious side whiskers was dressed in a bush jacket and a black T-shirt. He regarded the police ID with studied repugnance.
“Why don’t you pigs leave us alone? The fucking FBI was here last week. I’m being followed, you know that? Two little blondies in a gray car. You see this phone? Tapped. The entire power of the fascist racist state is ranged against us, but we shall continue to speak and print the truth. Now, beat it! Go fuck with the Times for a change.”
“Mister Barlow, I’m not trying to harass you. This is a routine investigation of a routine crime. All I want to know is, have you seen this man?” He held out the mug shot of Preston Elvis. Barlow barely glanced at it.
“No,” he snapped.
“You sure? Why don’t you take another look? We have reason to believe he worked here.”
“I don’t need to. One oppressed nigger is the same as another. And if you think I’m going to help an oreo pig track down a brother, you’re dumber than you look.”
“Take it easy, Barlow. I gave fifty bucks to the NAACP in 1969.”
“Get out of here!”
“Honest, Barlow, I could care less about this guy’s politics. And they promised me if I broke this case I’d make sergeant-don’t you want to see the brothers get ahead on the force?”
“Brother, my ass! When the oppressed peoples rise up it’ll be class traitors and running dogs like you who’re gonna go to the wall first.”
“I can hardly wait. Lookie here, Lumumba, I’d like to stay and bullshit with you about the class struggle and all, but there’s this guy who seems to have aced about a hundred guys, most of ’em blacker than you, and I’d like to put him away, and this dude Elvis is gonna help me do it. Now, I asked you nice to help me, and you told me to get fucked so what do you say, we go along downtown and I’ll ask you again?”
Barlow jumped to his feet. “Oh, now the pig shows his true colors. You want to take me to jail? Go right ahead. I been in jail before.” He held his hands out rigidly, wrists together. “Go head, muthafucka! Take me in! Hey, people! Uncle Tom is gonna arrest my black ass. If I get shot trying to escape, remember his face.”
There were about twenty people in the large room, and at Barlow’s outburst they stopped what they were doing and began to move ominously toward Barlow’s desk, making belligerent noises.
Dunbar said, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Barlow! Get real!” Dunbar knew he couldn’t afford to start trouble. The crowd was obviously not going to let him take Barlow in without a scuffle, and if he called for backup, somebody was going to ask what he was doing there in the first place, which meant he would either have to lie, or get chewed out for wasting time on a dead case.
He snorted in disgust and pushed his way past the growling revolutionary cadres and out of the main office. He heard the crowd cheering as he swung past the glass door.
The detective loitered despondently in the bookstore for a while. There was a good deal on the collected works of Kim II Sung in twenty-five volumes, but Dunbar was able to restrain himself. He had just about become resigned to sitting in his car on Boynton Street until Elvis should decide to show, when he happened to look back into the office.
Everyone had gone back to work after their revolutionary victory. Barlow was dialing a number, reading it out of a small, black book. He looked around furtively as he waited for a connection. He was on the phone for no more than a few seconds of conversation. Then he hung up, put the book in a desk drawer and locked it.
Dunbar thought that was funny. Old Jim Barlow did not seem like a terse man. Probably talk your ear off about the oppressed working classes while ordering a cup of coffee. On the other hand, if he were telling somebody that the cops were after him and he thought his phone was tapped, he might be brief for once.