Streets of Fire (21 page)

‘Yeah,’ Ben said, ‘I guess he was.’

‘Young man?’

‘Yeah.’

The preacher shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Terrible for a man to die young. Of course, it happens The heart is a tricky thing.’

‘What?’

‘The heart,’ the preacher explained. ‘Sometimes it just gets you, young or not.’

‘Heart attack, you mean?’ Ben asked.

The preacher nodded. ‘That’s the way they say he died. Nobody told you that?’

Ben shook his head. He could see Ryan’s body swinging beneath the lamp, the overturned chair, the black, swollen tongue and round, protruding eyes.

‘No, nobody told me,’ he said.

The preacher smiled politely, then stepped to the head of the grave. A mound of reddish earth stretched out before him, naked as a corpse.

‘Okay to begin?’ he asked Ben.

Ben nodded.

The preacher bowed his head slowly and began to speak, but Ben could hardly hear him over the roar of the diesel trucks that swept loudly up and down the street, groaning under the weight of so much iron and steel. He glanced away from the grave and down the long avenue that led up to it. At the end of it, he could see the high storm fence of the rubber plant, and he realized that if his vision could rise above the line of trees which blocked it, he would be able to see the cold round eye of the storm drain, and then, sweeping to the right, the gray, unpainted goalpost that had briefly marked the grave of Doreen Ballinger. In his mind, they seemed to form a triangle, these three bleak, impoverished graves, but as he continued to consider it, he realized that it was one which was made up of little more than lines drawn over a vast and empty space.

*

The bar where Kelly had taken Ben the night he died was only a few blocks from the cemetery, and as he sat in the same booth through the evening, Ben tried to imagine the way Kelly had had to live during the long years before he’d finally decided to end it. In his mind, he could see his body hanging grimly at the end of the rope, circling slowly in the small breeze that swept through the bedroom, turning, turning, as if sleeplessly in search of some impossible deliverance. ‘The thing is, I loved her,’ he’d said over the night’s final drink, with his eyes already hooded, his words vaguely slurred. For that, he’d paid a heavy price, living more alone than even Ben could now imagine, alone in a tiny, dilapidated house set down among a raw assortment of clanging factories, without family or friends, mocked by the people he worked with. Death would at last seem lovely after such a life.

Ben took a sip of whiskey and glanced toward the front of the bar. The early evening air had turned bluish-pink, and just over the roof of the rubber plant, he could see the residue of sunset, a spray of purple which rose like a light mist above the city. It might have looked beautiful, setting over a beautiful city, but it looked only dreamy and out of place above the cinderblock and tin-roofed factories which surrounded him. He turned his eyes from the window and glanced about the bar. A few factory workers crouched in a booth a few feet away, while a couple of others leaned against the bar, sipping slowly at their beers while they made idle conversation with the bartender. He wondered if Kelly had known any of the men who trudged into the bar after their shifts, had ever had a single decent talk with even one of them. He could not know for sure, but it struck him that he probably hadn’t. For what would be the use, after all, since the one great experience of his life could not be talked about with any of them. And so Kelly had chosen not to deceive anyone, but to take the isolation instead, the silence, the absolute apartness, and to live with that as long as he could, and when he couldn’t anymore, to go out like a man, asking no one’s pity, apologizing to no one, but simply going out of life in the way he had lived it, utterly and unbreachably alone.

It was almost midnight by the time Ben turned into his own gravel driveway. Across the street, the light in Mr Jeffries’ window was burning brightly, and it was easy for him to imagine the old man tossing sleeplessly on his bed or ambling shakily toward the bathroom. His own father had been like that in the last days, pointlessly moving from one room to the next, dazed, unreachably confused, only half-aware of who or where he was. Ben had gotten up many times in the early morning hours to find him stranded in the hallway, glancing about hopelessly, like a child lost in an unfamiliar city. He had finally died in this state of helpless bafflement. It was as if his mind had simply fallen away, like a body over a ledge, and Ben could still remember their last meal together, the old man mumbling incoherently while he stared expressionlessly at his food. He kept his eyes on Mr Jeffries’ lighted window for a moment longer, as if by watching from a distance, he could somehow help him if he fell, or guide him back to his bed and safely tuck him in as he had his father so many times before.

Suddenly the light went off, and Ben turned up the narrow walkway toward his house, then trudged up the short wooden stairs, unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

He felt the pistol barrel at his ear before he could reach the light switch beside the door, and the very shock of the cold round steel against his head froze him instantly.

‘Don’t move,’ someone said in a tense, trembling voice.

It was a man’s voice, but that was all that Ben could tell.

‘Don’t move,’ the man repeated sternly.

Ben stood motionlessly in the darkness, his right hand still lifted slightly toward the light, his fingers stretched toward it, but halted in midair, stiff, wooden, a puppet’s brittle hand.

‘Just take one step forward,’ the man said.

Ben could feel the barrel as it pressed more deeply into the soft flesh behind his ear.

‘Real slow, now,’ the man said. ‘Just one step.’

Ben took a single step, then stopped immediately. He could feel his eyes burning with an odd fierceness, as if trying to sear away the covering darkness.

‘Keep your hands where they are,’ the man told him. ‘Now take one more step.’

Ben did as he was told.

‘Get on your knees,’ the voice commanded.

‘What?’

‘Get on your goddamn knees!’

Ben slowly lowered himself to the floor.

‘Now kiss the street,’ the voice said with a sudden, bitter harshness.

Ben instantly tipped forward, spreading out onto his stomach. ‘Now spread them,’ the voice demanded in a tone that now seemed less harsh, even slightly muffled, as if a handkerchief had been placed over it and pressed down. ‘Spread your arms over your head.’

Ben flattened himself facedown across the hard wooden floor, then drew his hands up and over his head, as if he were reaching for something just beyond the limits of his grasp. For an instant he lay motionlessly in the darkness, then he felt the man kick at his heels.

‘Spread your legs!’

Ben did as he was told.

‘Shit,’ the man said softly.

Ben felt a hand reach down, quickly unsnap his holster and jerk his pistol from it.

‘That’s better,’ the man said.

Ben said nothing, and for a time he simply lay flat against the floor. Then, suddenly, he felt the man’s body as it pressed its full weight onto his back.

‘You ain’t moving now,’ the man said mockingly.

‘Guess not,’ Ben said weakly.

The man laughed. ‘The thing is, you got a problem,’ he said menacingly. ‘What you might call a nigger problem. Know what I mean?’

Ben did not answer.

The barrel of the pistol bit into his flesh.

‘You hear me, mister?’ the man demanded.

‘Yeah.’

‘I said you got yourself a real bad nigger problem.’

Ben remained silent, waiting, until he felt the barrel pressing into him again. ‘What problem is that?’ he blurted.

‘That little nigger girl,’ the man replied immediately. ‘The dead one.’

‘What about her?’ Ben asked weakly.

‘What do you know about her?’

‘Nothing,’ Ben told him.

He felt a fist strike him on the back of the head.

‘Don’t fuck with me,’ the voice hissed. ‘What do you know about that girl?’

Ben did not answer, and the fist struck him again.

‘Don’t fuck with me,’ the man repeated. ‘You do, you’re one dead nigger-lover.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ Ben said quietly. He could feel a haze moving down on him, descending like a curtain through the pain. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he repeated dully.

Once again the fist struck him, and he felt his head jerk to the left with the force of the blow.

‘Where was she?’ the man demanded, his voice now oddly changed, tense, urgent.

‘What?’ Ben asked puzzled.

‘Where was she?’ the man repeated, his voice almost frantic.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

For a moment the man said nothing, and in the darkness, Ben could almost hear his mind ticking desperately.

‘You hate niggers?’ the man asked finally.

Ben did not answer. He could feel a raw pain shooting up and down his back. Then a large hand grabbed the back of his head and pushed forward, shoving his face into the floor.

‘You hate niggers?’ the voice demanded.

Ben said nothing.

The barrel dug into his flesh.

‘Tell me you hate niggers,’ the voice said. ‘Tell me right now.’

Ben remained silent.

‘Right now,’ the voice said sharply. ‘Or you’re dead.’

Ben said nothing. He could feel the man’s fingers as they tugged at his hair, hear his shallow, angry breath, feel the weight of his body as it pressed down upon his back.

‘Tell me you hate niggers,’ the voice said. ‘Tell me that, right now.’

Ben did not speak. He could feel the barrel of the pistol as it circled around the back of his head, then pressed into his ear.

‘I’m gonna blow your fucking brains out,’ the man said.

Ben heard the pistol cock. He glanced up and saw a small yellowish light flow toward him from the front window. Mr Jeffries had turned his light on again. He took in a long breath, very deep, then tightly closed his eyes.

‘Bye bye,’ the man repeated mockingly.

Ben waited, his hands clenched, his eyes shut tight, his mouth now suddenly so dry, his thirst so extreme that it felt unquenchable.

For a moment there was only silence, and during those few seconds, Ben regretted that it was night, rather than morning, that there was no sunlight to penetrate his closed eyes, no birds for him to hear, no reassuring traffic or street chatter, but only this flat, absolute silence in a dark which was broken only by a sickly yellowish light.

Suddenly the weight lifted, and Ben realized that the body was no longer on him. Still, he did not move, did not open his eyes, did not reach for an impossible hope.

‘Move, just once, and you’re dead,’ the man said, almost wearily, as if the exertion of his attack had all but taken the final measure of his strength.

In an instant, he was gone, moving quickly down the long corridor to the kitchen, then out the back door and into the thick black night.

Ben could hear his feet as they padded swiftly away, then the soft beat of the screen door as it closed behind him. It was only then that he pulled himself up and walked slowly back to the kitchen. He closed the door and locked it, then turned on the small light in the backyard. At the far edge of the yard, he could see the rusty wire fence that bordered it. It was still weaving slightly from where the man had climbed over it, and Ben could see his own service revolver hanging awkwardly from one of its unsteady metal posts, its barrel carefully nosed upward toward the still thickly clouded sky.

Luther looked astonished when he opened the door and saw Ben staring at him evenly.

‘Good God, Ben,’ he yelped, ‘you got any idea what time it is?’

‘I need to see you, Captain,’ Ben said bluntly.

Luther’s eyes narrowed. ‘This better be important,’ he said. ‘I got a sick wife, and that knocking probably woke her up for the night.’

‘It’s important,’ Ben told him.

Luther stepped out onto the porch, carefully closing the door behind him. He wore a pair of bulky light-blue pajamas, and the shirt billowed out slightly as he walked down the steps, then out into the yard, his bare feet nearly covered by the wet, dewy grass.

‘All right, what is it?’

‘I got jumped tonight,’ Ben said.

‘Jumped?’

‘In my own house,’ Ben added significantly.

Luther chuckled. ‘Well, shit, Ben, a cop can run up on a burglar just like anybody else.’

‘This wasn’t a burglar.’

Luther eyed him carefully. ‘How do you know?’

‘He was waiting for me.’

‘Waiting for you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What time was this?’

‘A little past midnight.’

Luther seemed to reconsider things. ‘Well, go ahead,’ he said gruffly. ‘What happened?’

‘The guy jumped me as I came in.’

‘You don’t look that bummed up,’ Luther said casually. ‘Did he rob you?’

‘No,’ Ben said. ‘He wasn’t interested in that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was interested in the girl.’

‘What girl?’

‘That colored girl we found in the ballfield.’

Luther’s face tightened. ‘The guy that jumped you was interested in that?’ he asked unbelievingly.

‘That’s right.’

‘What’d he want to know?’

‘Everything. Whatever I’d found out about her.’

‘What’d he ask exactly?’ Luther demanded with a sudden heightened concentration.

‘He wanted to know where she was.’

‘You mean her body?’

‘Where she was before she died,’ Ben said. ‘At least that’s what I think he meant.’ He shrugged. ‘Or maybe he just wanted to know where we found her.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know for sure.’

‘Did he want to know who killed her?’

‘I guess he wanted to know everything,’ Ben said. ‘But he didn’t ask about that.’

‘What’d you tell him?’

‘That I hadn’t found out very much.’

‘Could it have been some crazy relative?’ Luther asked. ‘Was the guy colored?’

‘No.’

Luther shook his head despairingly. ‘This is bad, Ben. This is real bad.’

‘It’s worse,’ Ben said bluntly.