"Oh." The guard's eyes seemed to soften a bit. "Come over here… Marie, she wants to know if a—"
"Turner, John Turner."
"Has been picked up. Last night."
"Or night before. He been gone two days now."
"Wait." The receptionist picked up a phone. Her face curled as she watched Vyry, as if a bad smell had invaded the foyer. "No? Thank you, then. No — just some nigger run away from home. Thanks, Les. Bye-bye." She looked past Vyry to the guard. "Nobody in custody by that name."
"Sure?"
"I said no." The woman glared at her, then at the guard. "Are you going to let her—"
"Come on, let's go," said the guard.
"But—"
"He's not here. You'll have to go."
Near the door she twisted free from his hand. "Where else can he be, officer? Where can I look?"
"Have you tried the colored ward at the hospital?"
"He's not there."
"Well — he might have took off." The guard looked unhappy; he, at least, she felt, seemed to see her as a human being and not as a black skin, a CE, something to insult and get rid of. "Men do that sometimes. Get tired of a woman, take off — don't come back."
"Not Johnny."
"Well then." He shifted from foot to foot. "There's one other place you might try. If you aren't afraid. That's patrol headquarters. But that… well, they can be pretty rough on you down there."
"Oh."
"If you could wait an hour, I'll be off then. I might could go down with you."
She looked up in surprise. "That's right nice of you. But I can't wait no hour."
"Fred," said the man in the business suit.
"Good luck, then," whispered the guard.
The door opened for her. Door can't tell if I white or colored, she thought. Just opens for any person. Must have been made up North. The air outside felt close and muggy after the air conditioning of the station.
Every CE knew where the Citizens' Patrol headquarters was. Since the riot the armed patrollers, all white and primarily working-class, had been combing the city after curfew. It was ten blocks away, near half a mile, and she began to walk again, through streets that were beginning to fill with people on their way to work.
And as she walked, pictures began to form in her mind.
Johnny had not been like most CEs. He had dared to hate and, in some ways, dared to show it. She felt cold as she remembered some of the things he'd told her about. Things he and the other waterfront men had done to outgoing cargoes. Sugar in the tanks of outgoing General Johnstons from Tredegar. Optics cleverly cracked or knocked awry, ruining weapons worth thousands of dollars. Sand in bearings, tools thrust through turbine blades, buckets of salt water in radio sets, warehouses of tobacco and cotton going up in fires of unexplained origin.
What if the patrollers had caught him in the act of destroying something? Of committing some crime against state (white) property? Every CE in the South knew the summary justice of the patrollers and of their even more radical faction, the mystery-shrouded Kuklos League. She'd seen a lynching in Charleston when she was small. A little white girl had disappeared. An old Negro, half-crippled, had admitted seeing her; searched, his person yielded a tiny ring, which the frantic mother swore was her child's. He'd been hung from the quaint old antebellum balcony of the Dock Street Theatre. The little girl had turned up the next day, unhurt. The ring, Vyry had been told by a playmate (the old man's niece), had belonged to his childhood sweetheart, who had died of influenza in 1919.
And it was till the same. The white-led police had fired at Turner regardless of the crowd beyond. The patrollers still rode at night with shotguns and powers of summary arrest. Nor did they stop at that; Johnny had told her of the broken bodies that drifted down the Elizabeth in the mornings, bodies the longshoremen were forbidden to touch.
This was their "conditional emancipation."
And yet, she thought as she hurried through the streets, under the proud new buildings and gay bunting of the New South, she could not blame nor hate all of them. There were good ones, like the guard, people who tried to help within the constraints of an iron society. There were even some in positions of power who might be reached — like the major who fancied himsetf in love with her. But there were others of unqualified evil, though for them there was an excuse — government policy.
In the end, perhaps it came down to that: what the government made them do. If the CEs were in charge, would it be any different, really? I hope it would, she thought, looking away from a passing truck as the driver shouted an obscenity at her. At least we've known what it is to suffer. That alone has made us wise.
Music drifted around her and she slowed as she reached the end of Granby Street. Here the downtown area degenerated into low, grimy buildings; night clubs, pornographic bookstores, drug shops, liquor stores, low movie houses, and dozens and dozens of bars. On weekend evenings they were filled with sailors out for a drink and a lay. This morning, early on a Monday, they served a different clientele: the patrollers, who sought refreshment after a long night on the streets.
"Hey, you!"
"Hey, baby!"
"Oh, brown sugar, c'mon suck on this!"
Patrol headquarters was just ahead, at the corner of Granby and Brambleton. She looked straight ahead and walked on. The men behind her nudged one another. Some, carrying bottles, began to drift after her. Hearing their footsteps and drunken laughter, she walked faster. For a moment she thought of turning back. No, not back — they were behind her, closer now, calling and giggling — but to the right, walking (running?) down Olney toward the wider streets where people would be walking and driving… But she couldn't. Not till she found out if Johnny was here.
"Hey, sugar, what you doin' down here?"
The smell of liquor flowed over her. She pulled away from the hands, and her sleeve tore with a ripping sound. The headquarters building, barred flag in front, the men lounging there looking her way, was less than a block away. To its left was a bar, the Gibraltar, and then the clutter of boxes and cans that marked the mouth of an alley.
"Slow down, bitch! We want to talk to you." The voices were angry now, fierce with lust. More hands. She twisted, lashing out with her purse. It was almost torn from her hand as it hit someone with a solid thud. A man cursed; they fell back for a moment. "Jesus, she's a fighty one," said someone. "Where you goin', baby?"
"To headquarters."
"You goin' to headquarters?"
"I got business there."
Perhaps it was the sharpness of her tone (actually born of fear) that made them hesitate, but she walked faster and in a moment was inside the building. More air conditioning, like a cold blow in the face. A row of startled white faces — all men. Startled, then instantly hostile. A game of pool in a corner stopped dead, the players turning with cues in hand to see the cause of the sudden hush. No one spoke as she crossed to a gray-uniformed man at a desk. He stared at her as she approached.
"Morning, Officer. Is you with the patrol?"
"Yes."
He seemed, if not friendly, at least not openly hostile. Tall even in the creaky wooden chair, blond hair, blue eyes, young. She took a breath in relief — but then she saw that it wasn't Army gray he was wearing, but a darker color. Then she saw the white armband with the flaming cross.
And the three red letters: KKL.
"What can I do for you?" he said.
The men watched, all silent. Cigar smoke drifted lazily in layers. Vyry put her fingers lightly on the desk; they trembled. "I'm looking for a man. My man, sir. His name is Johnny Turner. He hasn't been home for two days. I wonder if the patrol picked him up."
"I'm afraid we can't help you."
"He isn't here?"