Willie and Lester had just left Fifth Crescent Drive and were heading for the two brick pillars in front of Tupelo Drive.
“And you don’t think it’s kinda strange that he just up and decides that he wanted us—us of all people—to help him. And on Christmas Eve no less.” Willie stuck his hands into his pockets.
“Sure, it would be strange for anybody else. But when you’re talking about Nedeed, you gotta play by a different set of rules. For all we know, he may want us down there to stuff Easter baskets. Who cares? He said he’d make it worth our while.”
“Well, he can make it worth your while, ’cause I’m not going.”
“Aw, Willie, now why you going on like this when the guy just wants to give us a hand?”
“Look, you always said that the only thing Nedeed would give a burning man was a match. I don’t see why you’re so quick to believe that he’s gotten into the charity business when it comes to us.”
“It ain’t about no charity. He wants something and he’s willing to give something up—the old buckola, White. And he’s got plenty of those.”
“Yeah, Shit, I know that. But what I still don’t know is what he wants with us. Why didn’t you ask him?”
“In the middle of a funeral?”
“The funeral was over.”
“Well, they were wheeling the body out. And even I’ve got enough class not to stand there arguing about who’ll do what for how much when that poor woman was rotting away.”
Willie sucked his teeth. “Now, how did all this go down again?”
“I’ve told you a hundred times. Nedeed asked me what we were doing there, and I said we were doing some work for Hollis, we’d been working for people down here all week, and then he said—”
“Wait a minute. He asked you what we were doing there? He didn’t see us together. I was already out in the truck.”
“Well, he must have seen you when you went into the chapel looking for Hollis.”
“I didn’t go in. I just stuck my head around the door.”
“Well, whatever. Because he asked me if the darker-hued gentleman was with me. Get that—the darker-hued gentleman. What a turkey.”
“Did he wanna know about me before or after he offered you the job?”
“It was after. No, I guess it was before. I can’t remember that shit. The whole thing only took a coupla seconds.”
“Did he wanna know my name?”
Lester stopped walking. “White, what’s wrong with you? Is there something going on that I should know about? I swear to God, this sounds like one of those conversations in a grade-B detective movie. Now, I’m the first to admit that Luther Nedeed is a cold-blooded son of a bitch, who wouldn’t give his own mother the time of day if he couldn’t come out ahead. But, man, he’s hardly in the league with the Boston Strangler or the Houston Ax-Murderer. If anything, he wants us down there to do something that would cost him twice as much for unionized labor and four times as much on Christmas Eve. Oh, he’ll cut our throats—no doubt about it. But not in the way you seem to be thinking. For Christ’s sake, this is Linden Hills, it isn’t some back alley in—”
“Go ahead, finish it. Some back alley in Putney Wayne, huh, Shit?”
Lester’s face reddened. “You’ve been doing that to me all day, Willie. And it’s not what I meant.”
“No, that’s all right. But I think it is what you meant.” Willie’s voice was quiet and slow. “I just want to tell you something though: I’ve seen things done to people down here that are a lot worse than anyone would have the heart to do up in Putney Wayne. ’Cause you see, it takes a lot of honesty, Shit—honest hate or rage, whatever—to pick up a knife and really cut a man’s throat. And you’re right, it could never happen here in Linden Hills ’cause these people can’t seem to find the guts to be honest about anything. And that’s why I’m wondering about Nedeed, that’s all. ’Cause of all the people down here, he seems to be the only one with enough backbone to go that far if he had to. Not that he has to with us …” Willie paused and frowned. “But he wants something with us, and I think he would just come out and say it.”
“I swear to you, Willie, he didn’t. All he said was, and I’ll quote, ‘I would like you gentlemen to come down to Tupelo Drive and help me on Christmas Eve. Is nine o’clock expedient?’ Now, you know I couldn’t make that up. I even had to think a minute about what expedient meant.”
“So he deliberately didn’t say what he wanted?”
Lester sighed. “No, he didn’t say.”
“Then I’m not going, ’cause that means it’s something weird.”
“Sure, it’s weird. I knew from Jump Street it had to be weird. It’s at Nedeed’s house, isn’t it? But at worst, I told ya, it’s stuffing Easter baskets.”
“Well, he can stuff ’em by himself.”
“You’ve got two days to think about it.”
“I’ve already thought about it.”
The snow finally started falling as they reached the entrance to Tupelo Drive. The wind sent the flakes swirling into the red bricks of the twelve-foot pillars, and they clung there like tentacles, feathery and alive. The tall pine trees, blocking out the town cemetery on each side of the winding incline, also blocked what little light the overcast skies would have shed on the short wide streets below them. The sensation of moving from afternoon into night wasn’t helped by the huge hedges and redwood fences circling the backyards that literally rose about their heads on each side of them. The snowflakes were heavy and wet, managing in moments to turn the gray air in front of them into a solid white wall. It would have been impossible to see another street below even if the road didn’t drop sharply around a right curve.
The snow blew up into Willie’s nose and ears, causing him to cringe. “Well, it looks like your idea is shot to hell now.” He raised the collar on his pea jacket. “We can’t go down there, ringing doorbells in this weather. Not that there’s a whole lot we can do anyway; this stuff is gonna stick.”
“Maybe we could still try. There might be something for us to do inside one of those houses.”
“Les, I don’t like the idea of walking around Tupelo Drive not knowing where we’re going. All the other times, somebody has been expecting us. These people might not even open their doors.”
“Well, if we don’t do something, that’s it. We’re out of work because no one else has called. And the only one who wanted us down here was Nedeed, and that’s not till day after tomorrow.”
“Look, I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t snowing. But I don’t want to get lost down there in all this mess.”
“Willie, there’s no way to get lost. We just follow this curve around and down through the next three streets and we’ll come out by Patterson Road. It just seems strange ’cause you don’t travel through here often.”
“I don’t think you’ve been through here too often yourself, unless you’re in the habit of visiting that cemetery, ’cause you said you don’t know anybody on Tupelo Drive.”
“How would I know these people? Just look at these layouts. My street is the slums as far as they’re concerned.”
“Well, I’m for getting back up into the slums. Besides, this place gives me the creeps. It’s so damned dark and—”
“Freeze!”
They turned and saw that a police car had rolled up silently behind them. The two policemen had their guns drawn out at arm’s length, both hands guiding the barrels pointed at the center of their chests. “All right! Hands against the wall, and spread ’em.”
Before they could speak, one of the policemen ran over and pushed them against the brick pillars while the other kept his gun leveled at them. “I said, spread ’em.”
Willie saw the pale lips pressed into a thin line, the brown stubble on the tightly set jaw, and the white knuckles strained against the gun’s handle. But what frightened him the most was the reflection of his own dark face in those blue irises. That alone had the power to get his head split open or his insides blown
apart—just because it was there. It wasn’t a matter of innocence or guilt at that moment; it was a matter of trying to find a way to achieve the vital balance between moving too quickly, too slowly, and not at all, that would save his life until he could explain.
The bricks bit into his bare palms as he felt his body being slapped in hard, rapid succession from the left to right side of his chest, down to his legs.
“I want to know what the hell is going on!” Lester shouted. “Somebody is gonna answer for this.”
“Kid, the only one who has any answering to do is you. All right, turn around.”
They had put their guns back into their holsters, but the policeman standing by the car still kept his hand resting on the handle.
“We had a complaint about some prowlers in this neighborhood. And we’ve been following you two for the last ten minutes, and I wanna know why you ain’t done nothing but stand here, casing out those backyards there?”
“Is this an official charge? I wanna know if this is an official charge? God, I hope it is, because then I’m suing for false arrest.”
“All right, smart ass, you want an official charge? Loitering on private property. Linden Hills is all private property.”
“Well, I happen to live in Linden Hills. My name is Lesterfield Walcott Montgomery Tilson, and I’m the legal owner of the property at One Hundred First Crescent Drive.”
There was a brief moment in which the blue eyes left Lester’s face and took in the sheepskin coat, suede gloves, and leather boots.
“Well, Mr. Lesterfield whatever, you’re over a mile straight down from First Crescent Drive.”
“So I can’t take a walk in my own neighborhood, on a public road? There’s a law against standing and watching the snow fall?”
“No, but there is a law against illegal trespassing, and you were standing inside the entrance to Tupelo Drive, which is a privately owned road that runs past nothing from here on in but privately owned property. And by your own admission, you aren’t one of the residents. I can haul you in for that—and having a big mouth.” He turned to Willie. “What about you? You live here too?”
“No, but he’s with me,” Lester said.
Willie desperately wanted some way to deny that and still keep out of jail. But it looked as if he was caught between a rock and a hard place.
“Look, officer,” Willie said. “We’re out here because we’ve been working in this neighborhood all week, helping out some of the people that Lester knows. You can check if you want to. We’ve done jobs for the Donnells, the Parkers, and we just left a truck up on Fifth Crescent Drive at Reverend Hollis’s place. And when you stopped us, we were about to go down on the next street and start working there.”
“So now you’re telling me that you were invited down here on Tupelo Drive?”
“Of course we were invited,” Lester said. “And if you were willing to listen, you could have heard that five minutes ago.”
“All right, kid, I’m ready to listen now. Who invited you down on the next street?”
There was silence. Then the policeman smiled for the first time. “’Cause if you were just going down there to knock on doors, that’s soliciting. So now we’ve got illegal trespassing and soliciting without a license. Any way you play it, Mr. Lesterfield whatever, you’ve got no business in this neck of the woods unless you can come up with a name.” He paused for a moment. “Hey, I’ll tell you what, let’s all get out of this storm and take a ride up to the station. Maybe that’ll give you time to loosen your memory.” He jerked his head toward the squad car.
“I’m not going anywhere without an official charge.”
“Look, kid,” he said as he pointed his finger in Lester’s face, “I’ve been patient with you. Now, I can hold you twenty-four hours for questioning, and I can do a lot more than that for resisting a peace officer. So get going.”
A Checker Cab was slowly coming down Linden Road as they moved toward the police car. When it stopped, the rear window rolled down and Norman Anderson stuck his head out. “Is there some problem here, officer?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, it’s nothing to me.” Norman smiled pleasantly. “But Mrs. Dumont has been on the phone screeching for half an hour, wondering what’s happened to these two young men. She expected them down at her house over an hour ago.” Norman got out of the cab, his mincing accent and gait telling Willie and Lester that they were about to get another impersonation of what he’d often called a “Cousin Tom.”
“I suppose you know Mrs. Howard Dumont, the D.A.’s wife? Well, she and my wife are old friends and since I vouched for these two, I felt that the least I could do was to come and see what was delaying them.” He turned to the boys. “Well, it seems like you’ve gotten yourselves arrested. You know what kind of spot this puts me in? I told you she was depending on you to help out with that big party tonight for the commissioner and Chief Endicott. It’s probably for the best anyway. God knows what he caught you doing.” He turned back to the policeman. “Just let me know what the charges are, officer, so I can break the bad news to Mrs. Dumont.”
“These clowns never said they were going to the D.A.’s house. They didn’t know where they were going. And that’s why they’re being taken in.”
“He never gave us a chance,” Lester said. “I told him that I lived in Linden Hills and we were invited down here.”
“Look, how long do you think I’d keep my job if I brought every cock-and-bull story some stragglers handed me in this neighborhood? I gave you plenty of time to tell me where you were going.”
“Well,” Norman said, “now that I’ve cleared all this up I guess there’s no reason to take them in, is there, uh, officer …?” He made a point of staring at the badge number.
“I’m going to check this story out with the Dumonts.”
“Please, do. My name is Norman Anderson and I’m on my way there right now.”
“All right, you two, get in.” The policeman jerked open the door.
“Uh, excuse me, could I ask a small favor? Do you mind letting them ride with me? I’d hate to have Mrs. Dumont see these young men get out of a police car when the allegations against them will be unfounded.” He moved a little closer and lowered his voice. “Look, we both know how funny these people down here are about their image. And even the hint of a possible arrest will put a social stigma on these two that she’s bound to take personally since she’ll have to let them into her home.” The policeman hesitated. “The cab will be right in front of you,” Norman continued, “and everybody knows it’s almost impossible to turn around once you enter Tupelo Drive.”
The policeman went to the cab driver’s window. “I want you to take this cab straight to the Dumonts on Tupelo Drive. It’s the first gray stone house on your right side. And I’ll be right behind you.”
When they got into the cab with Norman, Willie let out a loud sigh. “Norm, you must have been sent from the gods.”
“Gods, nothing, you jokers.” Norman shook his head. “You know, Ruth had a feeling that you two might get yourselves into a mess, walking around down here. Trust a woman and her intuition.”
“You mean, Ruth sent you to look for us?” Willie asked.
“Naw, I really am on my way to the Dumonts. At least I wasn’t lying about her and Ruth. Laurel Dumont called yesterday and they talked for hours. Ruth promised to come down today, but she wasn’t feeling too well this morning so she sent me to bring her this gift. And she told me to keep an eye out for you losers because she hadn’t heard anything about you since you worked for the Donnells the other day. But I didn’t expect I’d have to keep you from getting thrown in the slammer.”
“And you were pretty cool, too, Norm.” Lester laughed. “‘The allegations against them will be unfounded … Social stigma.’ Man, where’d you get all them Perry Mason words? You really backed those turkeys off. But they weren’t about to take me to jail.”
“No, they were just about to go up
side your head,” Willie said. “Les, you were pushing that cop pretty hard. His hand was just itching to pull out that billy club.”
“I just wish he had.” Lester looked through the back window. “Lousy pigs. Treating us like we were a piece of garbage. Who’d he think he was?”
“It wasn’t what he thought he was, but what he thought we were,” Willie said, “a couple of unidentified flying niggers. I’ve seen guys get their heads blown off for nothing more than that. And you were standing there, handing him all that lip. Man, I’ll admit it, I was scared for you.”
“If he had any sense,” Norman said, “he would have been scared for himself. You’re a nice guy, Les, but sometimes you fly off the handle too quickly. And this time it could have not only gotten you hurt, but Willie, too. You know he wasn’t just gonna stand there and let those cops beat you up.”
“Who me?” Willie said. “I would have turned state’s witness quicker than you could have said ‘Sapphire.’ Yes, your honor, Lesterfield Walcott Montgomery Tilson got just what he deserved. I been telling the deceased for years that his mouth was a deadly weapon.”
They all laughed as the cab turned into a long driveway, bordered on one side by an eight-foot hedge and on the other by a gently sloping lawn that stopped at the front steps of a massive, stone Tudor with a red-cobbled roof.
“Let me get up to that door real quick,” Norman said. “All I need is a two-second head start on those cops and I’ll fix something up for you.”
They saw Norman talking to an old woman in a print housedress before the policeman joined him. Then the policeman came back to the cab and opened the door. “All right, you lucked out on this one. The Dumonts have vouched for you. But I’m warning you, next time don’t be wandering around down here on foot, or someone else will call the station. Look, just write Santa Claus and tell him to bring you a Ferrari for Christmas, Mr. Lesterfield. I hear he answers that kind of letter in Linden Hills.” He laughed as he slammed the door.