Streets of Fire

  Daniels’s eyes drifted back toward Breedlove’s still-open grave. ‘Do you think Charlie really was an informer?’ he asked.

  ‘Somebody thought so.’

  ‘You got any leads?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘Everybody seems to figure it must have been the Langleys.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘You got any evidence?’

  ‘Well, Breedlove’s ring had to have come from somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Daniels said sadly, as if mourning the fate of his fellow officer. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’

  ‘Unless it was a plant,’ Ben added casually. ‘Like a throwdown, something like that.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’

  Daniels laughed bitterly. ‘Yeah, in this kinda work, that’s the truth.’ He grasped the door handle of the car. ‘Well, I got to get on back to town.’

  ‘You on duty tonight?’

  ‘Naw,’ Daniels said, waving his hand. ‘Since I was Charlie’s partner, they’re giving me the day off. What about you?’

  ‘I’m still looking into a few things,’ Ben told him.

  Daniels opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. He leaned out the window, loosening his tie, and took in a long breath. ‘I’m going to be looking for a new partner,’ he said. ‘You interested?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Course nobody could replace Charlie.’

  Ben smiled quietly and stepped back. ‘I guess not.’ He drew his eyes along the body of the car. Daniels had done a thorough job. If there had ever been any tiny white flecks on the car, they’d long ago been washed off with a power nozzle and a buffing brush. ‘Looks like you gave it a good polishing,’ he said lightly.

  Daniels chuckled slightly. ‘Yeah, and it needed it. The funny thing is, Charlie was always complaining about that. He said I shouldn’t let it look so dirty and beatup.’

  In his mind, Ben saw Breedlove’s own car, battered, caked with an oily city grime. ‘He didn’t exactly practice what he preached, did he?’

  Daniels’ eyes flashed over to him. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, he never kept that old Ford of his looking very sharp.’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Daniels said. ‘That’s funny, I never thought about that.’ He smiled quietly. ‘I’ll miss him, though. We didn’t get together much after work, but on the job, Charlie was a good old boy.’

  Ben nodded silently.

  Daniels hit the ignition. ‘Well, take it easy, Ben.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said. He stepped back once again, edging himself onto the grassy shoulder of the road.

  Daniels revved the engine slightly, then threw the car into gear and pulled away.

  Ben watched as the car moved forward. A cloud of red dust swam out from behind it, and he could hear the sounds of tiny bits of gravel as the rear tires threw them up against the bottom of the car. It was the same sound he’d heard the night he’d pulled out of the chert pit, and he realized that what he’d heard was the sound of hundreds of bits of moist white clay as they collided with the bottom frame of the car. Still wet from the drenching rains of the day before, they must have clung to the complex steel underbelly of the car as they struck it with tremendous speed. Only the most thorough washing could have gotten rid of them entirely, and a wax job would have done no good at all.

  Patterson answered the phone immediately.

  ‘Leon,’ Ben said urgently, ‘I’ve been trying to get you all night.’

  ‘I was at a VFW meeting,’ Patterson said. ‘You’re a veteran, aren’t you, Ben?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You ought to think about joining.’

  ‘Listen, Leon,’ Ben said. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

  Patterson did not answer.

  ‘It’s important,’ Ben added.

  ‘Is this official business?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Breedlove.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Ben,’ Patterson said, his reluctance still in his voice. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I want you to call up Harry Daniels. Tell him you have something on Breedlove that he might be interested in.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I want you to tell him that you’ve come up with something that you don’t know what to do with. Tell him it’s about Breedlove, and that you don’t trust me with it, and so, since he was Breedlove’s partner, you’ve decided to come to him. Then you pick him up at his house. Make sure he goes with you. I want him to leave his car at his house.’

  ‘What if he won’t do that?’

  ‘Make sure he does.’

  ‘Just a second, Ben,’ Patterson said. ‘This is beginning to be a lot more than I think I’m up for.’

  ‘I don’t have anybody else, Leon,’ Ben said.

  ‘How about the Captain?’

  ‘Leon,’ Ben said pointedly, ‘I am talking about trust.’

  ‘You don’t trust the Captain?’

  ‘No.’

  There was silence, and through the line, Ben could almost hear Patterson’s mind running through its accounts.

  ‘I’d really appreciate it, Leon.’

  ‘All right,’ Patterson said. ‘So I call Daniels up. What do I tell him? I need some land of bullshit story.’

  ‘Tell him about the gun we found in the storm drain,’ Ben said. ‘Tell him that you’ve found out it was Breedlove’s.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Patterson asked unbelievingly.

  ‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. It’s just something to tell Daniels.’

  ‘Okay,’ Patterson said. ‘But what do I do when I’m finished with the story?’

  ‘Then you drive him back home,’ Ben said. ‘But be sure you stop off somewhere first and call me at Daniels’ house.’

  ‘You got his number?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said. Then he gave it to him. ‘When you call,’ he added, ‘I won’t say anything. I’ll just pick up the receiver. You tell me where you are, then hang up.’

  ‘All right,’ Patterson said. ‘I got it.’

  ‘Good,’ Ben said quickly. ‘Now, before you pick him up, I’ll be parked near Daniels’ house. After that I’ll be in the house until you call me. Be sure you get there at eight o’clock. And keep him out for at least half an hour. You understand?’

  Patterson did not reply.

  ‘Leon, do you understand what to do?’

  ‘Ben, am I in danger doing this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Patterson took a shaky breath. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll be there at eight.’

  Patterson was right on time, and from his car only a block away, Ben could see Daniels as he walked across his small lawn, nodded quickly to Patterson, then got in the car.

  Ben waited until the car had disappeared over a small hill before he headed slowly down the cement sidewalk, made a quick left at the fence and moved as casually as possible down the driveway to Daniels’ garage. He opened the door immediately and went inside. For a moment, he stood motionlessly in the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Slowly, the interior of the garage revealed itself, and Ben made his way through a snare of tangled water hoses and lawn chairs to the rear side of Daniels’ car. He didn’t bother to inspect the tires or fenders, but instead pulled himself immediately underneath, took a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and turned it on. In the yellow light beneath the car, he could see hundreds of flecks of white clay, and he quickly scraped a few samples into his hand, then brushed them into a plain paper bag.

  A single door led from the garage into the house, and Ben had no trouble picking the lock. He stepped into the kitchen, closed the door and then walked into the living room.

  Daniels had left a single lamp burning in the room. The telephone rested beside the lamp, and Ben tried to decide where to start looking first before Patte
rson’s call. He let his eyes wander about the room. There were pictures of Daniels in his World War II khakis, and several old photographs of what Ben took to be his mother and father. An ancient upright piano stood at one corner of the room and a small writing desk at the other. Everything looked ordinary, and more than anything, it reminded Ben of his own living room, the worn rug and Salvation Army furniture, all of it arranged haphazardly.

  He was still glancing idly about the room when the phone rang. He snapped up the receiver and waited. For a brief moment there was no sound. Then, suddenly, he heard a deep, resonant voice, thick with the rhythms of Bearmatch. ‘Okay. Midnight, like we planned. Same p-place. Collins Avenue. After that, before dawn, GM, Thirty.’

  Then there was nothing but a sharp click, followed by the dim buzz of the severed connection. Ben sat back in his chair, the voice still echoing in his mind.

  The phone rang again a few minutes later, and again Ben picked it up.

  ‘I’m at Smith’s Cafe,’ Patterson said. ‘We’re leaving now.’

  Ben said nothing.

  ‘I’m hanging up now,’ Patterson said nervously. ‘Smith’s Cafe. Downtown. I’m leaving right now. It should take about ten minutes.’

  FORTY-THREE

  Ben had already been sitting in his car for several minutes when he saw Patterson pull up to the curb in front of Daniels’ house.

  Daniels got out immediately, then stood in the yard, waving quietly, as Patterson drove away. For a time he lingered outside, his tall, thin body clearly visible in the light from the streetlamp a few yards away. He looked up and down the street as if expecting another car to come for him, then he turned abruptly and walked back into the house.

  Ben eased his car into gear and silently drifted a short distance down the low, sloping hill. When he had coasted far enough to see the edge of Daniels’ driveway, he stopped, pulled out a cigarette and waited. During the next hour one cigarette followed another, until he finally snuffed out the last one from the pack. The air inside the car was a thick, tumbling blue, despite the open windows, and from time to time he had to lean forward slightly and wave it away in order to keep Daniels’ house in clear view.

  While he waited, Ben continually repeated the message he’d heard earlier in the evening: Collins Avenue. Midnight. After that, before dawn, GM, Thirty.

  Collins Avenue was a stretch of sparsely populated road which ran in a winding path from one side of the city to the other, from the railyards beyond Bearmatch to the spacious lawns of Mountain Brook. It was sometimes used by people who were in a hurry to get across town and who wanted to avoid the more commercial boulevards that crisscrossed the city in the same general direction. Other than that, it remained more or less unused, a stretch of broken road which had long ago been replaced by the carefully tended avenues which funneled people rapidly into the central business district. Ben tried to reconstruct every inch of Collins Avenue, moving first along the shaded lanes of Mountain Brook and down the mountain through nearly deserted forest lands, then into the sprawling shanties of Bearmatch, where it finally came to a dead end at the railyard fences.

  Then he edged his mind over to the second part of the message, trying to decipher where the next meeting place might be. GM, before dawn. He knew that there was a General Motors plant on the outskirts of Birmingham, and it seemed at least possible that this was the place Daniels was supposed to go. But who was he going to meet there, and why?

  Ben was still going over the possibilities when the taillights of Daniels’ car flashed on suddenly. He leaned forward quickly, peering toward the tiny red lights of Daniels’ car and waited until it had backed out into the road. It headed north, then rounded a small curve and disappeared.

  Ben glanced at his watch. It was eleven forty-five. He hit the ignition quickly and pulled away. He could see Daniels’ car again as he made the turn at the end of the street. It was moving slowly, as if Daniels were simply out for an evening drive.

  The car continued west until it reached Collins Avenue. Then it turned north and headed toward Mountain Brook. Traffic was sparse, as it always was on Collins Avenue, and Ben had no trouble keeping up with Daniels’ car. ‘Like we planned.’ The phone call had just been confirmation. Daniels expected the meeting. He followed it at some distance, keeping his headlights on dim, until the lights of the city fell away and Collins Avenue turned into a narrow, badly kept and generally abandoned road which meandered through the most heavily wooded section of the city.

  Daniels slowed his pace considerably as the forest thickened around him, and Ben eased back too, trying to stay as far away as possible without losing track of Daniels’ car altogether. Still further on, he saw the brake lights go on and watched as Daniels’ car pulled off the road and stopped beside an isolated picnic table.

  A deep trench stretched across the road just where Daniels had pulled over, and Ben slowed down slightly before moving over it. Then he drove a few hundred yards further, pulled off onto a narrow dirt road and got out. He walked a few yards into the woods, far enough that he could not be seen by any other passing cars, and headed toward the picnic table.

  Daniels was sitting quietly at the table, smoking a cigarette, one leg crossed over the other. The darkness was very thick, but the orange glow of the cigarette faintly illuminated Daniels’ face. For a while there was no other light, but after a few minutes another car appeared, moving slowly down the avenue from downtown. It slowed as it neared the trench, passed over it and nosed in just behind Daniels’ car, bathing it for a moment in a thin, silvery light.

  Daniels did not stand up. He simply watched the car, still smoking idly.

  A tall man got out of the other car and walked over to Daniels. He was very large, and when he spoke, Ben recognized the voice. It was the same one that had delivered the message on Daniels’ telephone only an hour or so before.

  ‘Everything went g-good, I guess,’ the man said.

  ‘No problems at all,’ Daniels told him. ‘Teddy’ll take the rap for Breedlove.’

  ‘You used the ring?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Daniels said. ‘But I didn’t have to tip anybody. Someone else stumbled onto Langley’s place.’

  ‘Who d-done that?’

  ‘That’s not your business,’ Daniels said sharply. ‘You got your own work to do. Is it set?’

  ‘We thought it was f-fucked-up.’

  ‘Because of the girl?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ the man said. He chuckled softly. ‘B-but we handled that.’

  Daniels spit on the ground. ‘Yeah, you handled it,’ he scoffed. ‘And it was a real sloppy job if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t have much t-time now, did we?’ the man asked coldly.

  ‘Just the same,’ Daniels told him, ‘too many goddamn bodies have been piling up on this thing.’ He crushed the cigarette onto the cement table. ‘It was supposed to be just two, remember? One for one, to seal the relationship.’ He shook his head. ‘When we do business from now on, it’s got to go smooth. I got places to go, and I can’t be cleaning up messes like this all the time.’

  ‘You getting scared?’

  ‘Do I look scared to you?’

  ‘Way you’re t-talking,’ the man said, ‘’bout that girl and all.’

  Daniels waved his hand, already tired of the conversation.

  ‘The girl’s not my business anyway,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t my doing and I don’t want to get into it.’ He glanced about nervously, and Ben lowered himself into the dense undergrowth. He could smell the honeysuckle in the air, and somewhere in the distance he could hear water felling gently, as if over a small falls.

  ‘The thing is, I did my half,’ Daniels added crisply. ‘Now you do yours. The rest of it’s up to you, like I said. I don’t want to get into it.’

  The man took an envelope from his jacket pocket. ‘I guess this is your b-business, though,’ he said playfully. He waved it back and forth tauntingly. ‘I b-bet you’d like to get into this.’

  Dani
els nodded.

  ‘Here you are, then,’ the man said as he handed the envelope to Daniels.

  Daniels snapped the envelope quickly from the other man’s hand. ‘This is just the beginning,’ he said. ‘We’re going to run Birmingham without the kind of shit we’ve been having lately.’

  ‘On both sides of the f-fence,’ the man said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘B-by the way,’ the man said, ‘where’s them Black Cat boys? I got to keep up with them.’ He laughed softly. ‘Least till dawn, right?’

  ‘Teddy’s in jail,’ Daniels said. ‘And that where he’ll stay for a long time.’

  ‘Yeah, you fixed him good, d-didn’t you now?’

  ‘The other one’s off the force,’ Daniels replied curtly.

  ‘We d-don’t care about the other one,’ the man said. ‘We didn’t n-never care about him. He just a little n-nothing, like the man say. He ain’t got much sense.’

  ‘Well, Teddy’s finished,’ Daniels said. ‘You don’t have to worry about him anymore.’ He smiled tauntingly. ‘I delivered, didn’t I?’

  ‘You d-done what you said,’ the man told him dryly.

  ‘But your half of the bargain,’ Daniels added, ‘that’s still not finished with.’

  ‘Don’t you worry n-none,’ the man assured him. ‘It will b-be.’

  ‘It’d better be,’ Daniels warned. ‘When it happens, the Chief’ll be finished. There’s no way he’ll be able to hold on to the department after all that shit breaks loose. The new mayor’ll go in without a hitch, and he’ll be looking for somebody new to run the department.’

  ‘And you’ll be r-right there waiting for him,’ the man said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Daniels told him. ‘You’ll be rid of your problem, and I’ll be the new Chief.’ He glanced down at the envelope and smiled. ‘With a little campaign war chest all my own.’

  ‘You real smart,’ the other man said. ‘You maybe the smartest white m-man I ever seen.’

  Daniels continued to go through the envelope. Then his head suddenly snapped up.

  ‘You’re five short,’ he said. There was an edge in his voice.

  ‘We had expenses, like you know.’