“No, son,” Moses said, sadly. “I didn’t say I met Wallace; I said I was with him. It was just too neat, him signing everything over to Elijah and then just vanishing, like the earth swallowed him up. The night Wallace disappeared, I caught the first thing smoking. Been right here in Locke City ever since.”
Rufus got slowly to his feet. “I was going to tell you something today,” he said. “But I got a better idea. That is, if you’re willing to take a ride with me, later on tonight.”
Moses leaned back in his chair, reading the face of the young man before him. Decoding.
“I’d be honored if you would,” Rufus said, holding out his hand.
Moses grasped the younger man’s hand for a long second. Then he rose from his chair.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:44
As Luther was escorting Shalare back to the front of the house, a sliding panel behind Beaumont’s desk opened, and Cynthia stepped out.
“What do you think?” Beaumont asked, without preamble.
“He’s the kind of man they used to call a silver-tongued devil, Beau. Two-faced, with a lie in each mouth.”
“For all that, he was being honest with me… to a point.”
“Yes. The point about what he wants. The only question is, is that all he wants?”
“From us? It just might be, girl. Shalare’s outfit was never after our rackets. He’s a political man.”
“You mean, the elections?”
“No. I mean, yes, sure, that’s what he wants-now. But Mickey Shalare’s a man who plays the long game, Cyn. His roots aren’t here.”
“In Locke City?”
“In America, honey. Remember what he said about getting his own back? That’s what Mickey Shalare’s all about. I’m sure of it.”
“So you think he would take care of-?”
“Dioguardi? I think he’s got the horsepower to make him back off, no question about that. I mean, what’s the point of lying to us about that? We’d see the truth of things in a few days, anyway. It’s the rest of his promise-you know, that after the election Dioguardi, or another of his kind, won’t come back. That one I’m not so sure about.”
“That he can deliver?”
“Or that he even intends to. Shalare’s a man who understands power. And he knows, if our organization puts together the landslide he needs here, we’re going to leave our own people in place for the next time. Even stronger, we’d be. This is America. Nobody gets elected president for life, not since Roosevelt.”
“It’s still a puzzle, isn’t it, Beau,” she said, her tone making it clear she was pondering the situation.
“A big one.”
“So now you’re glad you’ve still got Lymon,” Cynthia said, smiling wistfully.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:50
“You had a fine old time, didn’t you, Big Brian?”
“Didn’t I just, Mick! You don’t often run across a man who follows the fight game the way Seth does.”
“The man at the guardhouse?”
“Yeah. He got someone else to cover for him, and we just strolled the grounds, talking.”
“And had a couple of cold ones?”
“Sure did. Pretty decent, too. Although it’s not Guinness they brew over here, that’s for sure. I told Seth he’d have to come by sometime and I’ll draw him a real-”
“You invited him to our place?”
“Well… sure I did, Mickey. I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I am, Brian. What did he say, when you asked him?”
“He said he would. And I hope he does. He’d fit right in. With the fellows, I mean.”
“Not like Lymon, hey?”
“Lymon? He’s a bloody tout, isn’t he? Grassing on his own. Seth wouldn’t do that.”
“You can tell?”
“That man would step in front of a bullet for his chief, Mickey. Same as I would for you. I could see it in him, strong and clear.”
“You saw the grounds, too, Brian?”
“Well, I don’t know as I saw them all. That’s a huge spread Beaumont has got. Big enough for a man in training to do his roadwork and never go off the property. Did get a long look at the house, though. Looks like it could take a direct hit from a mortar and laugh it off, it does. Solid stone, all around.”
“When we get back, you can draw us a map, Brian. It’s good work you did today.”
“Aye, Mickey. And thanks. Did your own work go well?”
“Well, I met the man. And I believe we took the measure of one another. But as for whether we have a deal, that I don’t know. We have to show him something first.”
“But that part’s easy, isn’t it? Dioguardi already said he would-”
“Starting tomorrow, we’ll just see about that, Big Brian,” Shalare said. He tapped the fingers of both his hands lightly on the dashboard, playing a song only he could hear.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:56
“Like I said, I came of age right in the middle of the Depression,” Sherman said to Ruth. “It was hard times.”
Harder on some than others, Ruth thought, remembering. She was next to Sherman on the couch, hands clasped in her lap. Her burnt-cork eyes never left his face.
“There wasn’t any work,” Sherman went on, “except the WPA stuff. Didn’t bother my father much-he’d been a drunk all his life, so he just stayed drunk. It was my mother who fed us.”
It was me who fed us, Ruth thought. Only I wasn’t the mother, I was the child. The rented child.
“My mother wasn’t a church person, but she had a sense of right and wrong that would have shamed a preacher. There were only two ways a man could go back then. Get on with the government, somehow. Or pick up the gun.”
“So you became a policeman?”
Sherman made a sound Ruth had never heard before, but instantly recognized. He’s calling home, she said to herself.
“Not at first,” Sherman finally said, holding her soft brown eyes with his own pair of faded-denim blues. “The only way to become a cop in Locke City back then was… Well, it’s the same way it is today: you have to buy your job. Today, you can buy it with things other than money. If you know someone, someone political, I mean, you can go to them, make the right promises, and they’ll maybe take you on. But back then it was always done in cash.
“It was all a crazy circle,” he said, nodding his head as if agreeing with some unseen person. “If you had enough money to buy a job, well, you didn’t need a job. Not a job as a cop, anyway. People didn’t just want that job for the paycheck, Ruth. There were always plenty of extra ways to make money…”
“I know,” she said, whisper-soft.
“So I made… I guess you’d call it kind of a bargain. I knew there was only one way for me to get the money to become a cop. So I swore, if… He let me get away with it, I would be the most honest cop there ever was. I’d never steal another dime as long as I lived.”
“So you did pick up the gun, but just one time, is that what you’re saying, Sherman?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I never told anybody else.”
“Oh,” was all Ruth said. She felt as if a malicious nurse had just given her an injection of sadness. I get it now. Once you get past the dollar tricks in alleys, once you start dealing with a higher class of customer, they all have a story they need to tell.
“It’s not that,” Sherman said, sharply.
Ruth sat up as if she had just been slapped. Her cheeks darkened, but she didn’t say a word.
“You’re not… Whatever you think you are, you’re not that to me,” Sherman told her. “I don’t have any need to tell my secrets, like going to confession. What I… trusted you with, what I come… used to come… to your place for, that’s nothing. I don’t mean it’s not a secret-sure it is-but it doesn’t tell you anything about me. This… what I’m saying, it does. I hope it does, anyway.”
“I already knew,” Ruth said.
“How could you? It was almost thirty years-”