"The South isn'.t what it used to be, you know," Hollister said. "You go into any expensive restat gant in Georgia, you'll see more blacks in it than you will in a similar restaurant up here. Integration is a fact down south. Up here, it's a myth. Up here, there isn't even a pretense of races mingling. In the South, you don't have to sit in the back of the bus anymore and you don't have to drink at separate water fountains, but at the same time you don't see any pepper-and-salt couples, at least I didn't. I do a lot of business in San Francisco, more to odd couples there than I do either here or in the South, mostly Asian-white, but mixed anyway.
The prejudices linger, man, they linger.”
Brown nodded again.
"There's integration in the South," Hollister said, "but there isn't oneness, do, you follow me? They don't say nigger anymore, but they still think nigger. Sambas up here. The N word is forbidden, but that doesn't stop the white man from thinking it. The only reason he doesn't say it out loud is he knows it can get him killed. Excuse me, Detective, that's prejudice in itself, isn't it?”
"But maybe you're right," Carella said.
Brown looked at him.
"I remember one thing that really disturbed me one night," Hollister said. "In fact, it still bothers me ...”
This was in Alabama, we were maybe a third of the way into the tour.
There was this crowd of young college professors at the place we were playing, drinking a lot, laughing it up, really digging the music. A very hip, white clique. Some single guys, some guys with their wives, all of them educated, all of them color-blind, right? So one of the professors asked us to come back to his house when we quit for the night, he and his wife wanted to extend the evening, this was one o'clock on a Saturday night, what the hell, they could all sleep late tomorrow morning. This was the New South, nobody had to stand up for my rights. It was understood that if the band went to this party, then Tote went with the band. There was no quarrel there, not even a murmur of dissent. We packed our axes and off we went. Well ... One of the single guys, a professor who taught anthropology or archeology or whatever thought it might make me feel more comfortable if he invited a black girl to join us. This was already condescension, can you dig? I was already perfectly comfortable. I was a college graduate, and a skilled musician besides, here with my friends and fellow musicians who had just made superb music in a roadside joint that frankly didn't deserve us. But the professor decided to make me feel more comfortable by asking one of the waitresses at the club to come on along to the party.
The girl wasn't a college girl putting herself through school, she wasn't an aspiring model or actress or anything but a very dumb eighteen-year-old black girl who spoke largely black English and drank too much bourbon and made a complete fool of herself while the professor stood by waiting to get in her pants. That was the whole point of the exercise. He no more wanted this mud eating nigger at that party yes, nigger than he wanted me there. All he wanted to do was humiliate her and fuck her. And by doing so, he was humiliating me as well. He was raping us both.
I'll never forget that night," Hollister said. "I told Katie how I felt afterward. The others had all gone to sleep, we were sitting on the porch outside this motel we were staying at, one of these old rundown Southern motels surrounded by trees hung with moss." For a moment, he was silent, lost in the memory.
"She kissed me that night," he said. "Just before we went to our separate rooms. Kissed me and said goodnight. That was the one and only time we ever kissed. I'll remember that night as long as I live. Kissing Katie Cochran on the porch of that old Southern motel. Two months later, she quit the band.”
tlaere. Brown asked.
"What'd you mean back 9”
“When?" Carella asked.
"When you told him maybe he was right. About the white man thinking nigger. You don't think nigger, do you?”
"No.”
"So why'd you say maybe he was right?”
"Because lots of white people do.”
"Let me tell you my own band story," Brown said. "I used to play clarinet in the high school marching band, this was a long time ago.
Some guys ...”
"I didn't know you played clarinet.”
"Yeah. B-flat tenor, too, later on. But at the time, all I played was clarinet. And these guys I knew in high school, they were all of them white, were starting a band and they asked would I like to join them.
This was kind of weird instrumentation for a rock group, it wasn't your usual rhythm and guitars. We also had a trumpet in there. Actually, we got a good sound. Five of us in the group. Lead guitar, bass, drums, clarinet, and trumpet. We only played weekends, we were still in high school, you know.”
"Anyway, we go to this wedding job up in Riverhead one Saturday night, and the bride's father takes one look at me and he pulls the leader aside a kid named Freddy Stein, I'll never forget his name and he tells him either the black guy goes or we can forget about the job. I think back then it was cotorea guy. Either the colored guy goes or there's no job for you here. So the band took a vote. And Freddy went to the father of the bride, and told him either the colored guy stays or your daughter has no music for her wedding. He reconsidered. We played the job and everybody went home happy.”
"Nice story," Carella said.
"True story," Brown said. "It was an Italian wedding.”
"Figures.”
"You think that guy still thinks nigger?”
"I'm sure," Carella said.
"That's the pity of it," Brown said. "We made damn good music that night.”
Four of them went in with Kevlar vests because maybe this was a murderer inside the apartment. There was Meyer on point and Kling directly behind him, with Parker and Willis flanking the door and ready to charge in as backups. It was about to go bad in the next three minutes, but none of them knew that yet. They were prepared for anything, jacketed and upholstered, and ready to go the minute Meyer kicked in the door. They were equipped with a No-Knock warrant. This was maybe a murderer inside there. In a minute, it would start going bad. Meyer listened at the wood. Not a sound in there.
He shrugged, turned to the others, shook his head, signaled nothing in there.
In thirty seconds, it would go bad.
He listened again.
Turned to the others again.
Nodded and backed off the door, knee coming up, arms spread like a punter going for the extra point, sole and heel of his shoe smashing into the lock, splintering the wood and breaking the screws loose.
"Police!" he yelled and behind him Kling yelled "Police!" and all four of them rushed into the room. In ten seconds ... A man wearing gold-rimmed eyeglasses was standing in his undershorts at the kitchen counter, a bread knife in his right hand, his left hand cupped over a loaf of Italian bread on the counter.
"Leslie Blyden?" Meyer shouted. "Don't move!" Kling shouted. Five seconds ... Behind them, Willis and Parker had fanned into the room.
In three seconds ... "Leslie Blyden?" Meyer shouted again.
And it went bad.
The man turned on them with the bread knife in his hand. He must have seen that they were all wearing vests because he went directly for Meyer, raising the knife high over his head like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, coming at him with the same purposeful stiff legged stride.
There was an instant ... There is always an instant. when Meyer hesitated, but only for an instant because the blade of the knife was rushing toward is chest with seemingly blinding speed, the man's downward thrust fierce and decisive, he was going to plunge the knife into Meyer's chest. His eyes said that, the grim set of his mouth said that, but most of all the plunging knife said that.