The Lightning Rule Page 19

  “Pardon me,” Emmett said. “I hate to interrupt, but are you, um, Uncle Papa?”

  “Why, yes I am, and you, my dear, could interrupt me any day.” Uncle Papa’s southern lilt spun the sentence into a purr. His companions giggled at the innuendo.

  “I need to talk to you, sir. Privately, if possible. It’s important.”

  “I prefer privacy myself.” He shooed the men from the booth, and Emmett sat opposite him. “To what do I owe the honor, Mister….” Uncle Papa held out his hand limply, anticipating a handshake and a name.

  “Detective. Emmett.”

  “Quite a grip you’ve got, Detective. Can I interest you in a cocktail?”

  “No, no thanks. By the way, the bartender wants you to close your tab.”

  “Oh please. She says that every single day, the whiny cow. Works my last nerve,” he moaned, chewing the olive from his martini. “So, pray tell, what brings an officer of the law into an establishment such as this?”

  “I’m here to discuss Tyrone Cambell. I understand you’re a relative.”

  That sapped the flirty glimmer from Uncle Papa’s eyes. “I’m Tyrone’s uncle.”

  “His real uncle?”

  “Yes, his real uncle. People been callin’ me ‘Uncle Papa’ since before my sisters had their kids.”

  “Why?” Emmett was curious.

  “’Cause I be kind, like the uncle you wished you had, and take care ’a folks better than they daddy did.” Seconds earlier, he would have played up the veiled sexuality. Now he was defending the origin of his nickname.

  “How close were you to Tyrone?”

  “Ain’t right to say you got a favorite when you have as many nieces and nephews as me. Sixteen,” he said, fanning himself, as if the sheer number raised the temperature in the room. “Some ’a them be bad too. Uncle Papa is not much for whoopins—had too many myself and see what it done—but I’d take a switch to most of ’em faster than you could say ‘Hallelujah.’ Not Tyrone, though. That boy had sense. Didn’t cuss. Minded his mama. And he didn’t shy away from me for what I was neither. He was grown. He understood. Didn’t matter to him. He even gave me a birthday present once. A wooden plaque with hooks for hanging keys. Ty made it in shop class. Me, I don’t have but one key. I didn’t care. I hung that key rack on my wall like it was the Mona Lisa.” Uncle Papa had stopped conducting with his hands and folded them on the table. There was no music in his story, only sadness.

  “Can you account for Tyrone’s whereabouts the day he went missing.”

  “All’s I heard tell was that Ty had gone to the corner store for a soda pop on a Friday night and never did come back. Simple as that.”

  Emmett’s expectations deflated. The deeper he dug, the further down the hole he wound up. Tyrone Cambell had evaporated from the face of the earth like the others.

  “I say something wrong, Detective?”

  “No, no, you’ve been very helpful.”

  “Why you asking about Tyrone anyhow?”

  “His murder is unsolved.”

  “You solvin’ it?”

  “I’m doing what I can.”

  “Shouldn’t you be out beatin’ on brothers with the rest ’a the police?” Uncle Papa quipped, batting his eyes coquettishly. “Or are you playin’ hooky?”

  “Yeah, I thought it’d be safe to hide in here.”

  “You feel safe with a bunch ’a queers?”

  By the standards of the Catholic faith, everyone in Franklin’s Lounge was a patent sinner, irrevocably damned if they did not repent. Emmett had spent the better part of his life repenting, and he wasn’t convinced God was listening. Be grateful for your sins, they are carriers of grace. The Jesuit prayer was a fateful reminder that from ill deeds sprang goodness. If that was true, then after the riot, there would be plenty of grace to go around.

  “I’m not in the habit of casting stones,” Emmett replied.

  Uncle Papa sipped his drink, bangles clanking. “No? Isn’t that part of your job, deciding who the bad guys are?”

  “The manual I read said ‘protect and serve.’”

  “You been outside lately, Detective?” All of the wit and cheer had been wrung from his face. Uncle Papa was speaking to Emmett man to man. “By the looks of it, you’re the only one who read that.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  A fleet of open-top, military jeeps was parading down Irvine Turner Boulevard, four National Guardsmen in combat helmets per vehicle. People on the sidewalks stopped to witness the procession. Emmett did too. The hot breeze kicked up by the passing jeeps gusted against his skin and ruffled his jacket. It seemed like an invasion rather than a rescue.

  Doubt was hammering in his mind as he walked back to his car from Franklin’s. The missing fingers were the strongest pieces of evidence he had. They shimmed his theory about the murders into plumb. Everything else—the wounds, the timing, the locations of the bodies—was off kilter. He couldn’t reconcile logic with fact. That made the murders all the more confounding.

  Parked conspicuously on the corner across the street from Emmett’s car was the blue Oldsmobile. Either his pursuer was intentionally being obvious in order to intimidate him or the thug was new to the racket. Chances were he was inexperienced. Emmett would play on that if he could. Somehow, he had to con the Delta’s driver into believing that Freddie wasn’t at his house anymore, even though that was exactly where he was.

  Emmett needed time to think. He took a circuitous route through the Central Ward, willingly letting the trail continue. In the rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of the guy behind the wheel. He wore a Borsalino hat with the brim tipped, which cast his features in shadow except for a round jaw and double chin. He was a ringer for Edward’s description of Lucaro’s right-hand man from the previous night. Emmett was tempted to stop the car and have a fair fight out in the open, but that wouldn’t be in his best interest or Freddie’s. He led the Olds to his house and pretended not to notice when the car sailed past his driveway.

  “The king returns,” Edward crowed as Emmett came through the front door. Mrs. Poole was sitting vigil with him in the living room.

  “I’m not the only one.” Emmett spied between the shades and saw the coupe circling for a parking spot. “Say, which of those guys socked you?”

  “The short one. Little bastard.”

  “And he’s the one who pushed me,” Mrs. Poole added.

  “Well, that’s who’s keeping us company.”

  “Couldn’t lose ’im?”

  “Didn’t want to.”

  Thrown, Edward furrowed his brow. Before he could ask why, Freddie came in from the kitchen gulping a glass of milk.

  “Didn’t wanna what?”

  “Didn’t want to wake you,” Emmett told him, covering. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I woulda been ’cept somebody’s so deaf they got to have the TV volume on full blast.”

  “His majesty has delicate ears,” Edward griped.

  “How was it out there, Mr. Emmett? Those troopers you were talking about, they taking care ’a things?”

  “So far they’ve set up roadblocks and they’re garrisoning the Guard at the armory.”

  “They’re not bringing in tanks are they, Marty?”

  “Tanks? Man, that’d be cool,” Freddie said. All of them stared. “What? Tanks are cool.”

  “I’m ’bout to show you cool,” Mrs. Poole cautioned.

  “Anything worth reading in there?” Emmett asked. Edward had the newspaper on his lap.

  “Every article’s the same. Says some cabdriver started everything.”

  Emmett recalled Patrolman Nolan’s understated description of the pummeled taxi driver, Ben White, that he “didn’t look so good.” Now the papers were blaming him for the entire riot. The real blame belonged to almost everyone except White.

  “Was there any mention of what happened to him after his arrest?”

  “Released on bail. Got his license revoked. Claimed the cops were lying about hi
m driving on a one-way street or something.”

  Mrs. Poole sighed. “Hard to know what’s what.”

  “No it ain’t,” Freddie countered.

  Both of them were right, Emmett thought.

  “Then I’d settle for knowin’ what’s coming next,” she said.

  Edward tamped his pack of Carltons. “What is coming next, Marty?”

  “We’re going to be doing some moving.”

  “Where you movin’?”

  “It’s not where I’m moving, it’s what. Are those old cardboard boxes Pop got from Westinghouse still in the garage?”

  “Should be. For as many as he had, you’d ’a thunk he was planning on packin’ up the whole house one piece at a time.”

  The lone perk of their father’s job on the production line was dibs on the leftover boxes the appliances were shipped in, appliances too expensive for most employees to purchase brand-new. Their father took the boxes because he couldn’t pass up something free, regardless of how unimportant or purposeless it was. For every box he brought home, Emmett imagined his father must have felt he had gotten over on the company that had been getting over on him for eight hours a day, five days a week for the lion’s share of his life.

  Sunlight was radiating around the rims of the window shades that blocked the view of the street. Emmett peeked under one of the blinds. The Oldsmobile had scored a spot on the opposite side of the road, a few doors down.

  “From where he’s parked, the guy won’t be able to see me go into the garage.”

  Freddie folded his arms. “What guy?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I’ve got to get the boxes.”

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Watch that mouth,” Mrs. Poole said sternly.

  “Fine, what the heck is going on?”

  Edward had figured it out. He grinned at Freddie “Looks like you’re going for a ride.”

  When Emmett raised the garage door, the hinges yowled so loudly that the noise seemed to take up physical space. The whole neighborhood could hear it. Emmett didn’t care what the Delta’s driver heard. It was what he saw that counted. From a pile of dozens, Emmett grabbed four flattened medium boxes. His father’s frugality finally had value.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Marty. Those hinges could’ve woken the dead. You oughta oil them too when you do the screen door.”

  “That’s not exactly at the top of my to-do list at the moment.”

  Mrs. Poole helped Emmett put together the boxes. “What are we going to fill them with?”

  “Nothing.” He folded the flaps, and the boxes closed into perfect squares. “They just have to appear to be full.”

  Freddie was pacing. “You gonna tell me who the guy is or not?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “He could sneak out the back door,” Edward suggested, “and crawl on his hands and knees to—”

  “Hold it. You can stop right there ’cause I ain’t crawlin’ no place.”

  “Freddie, if you don’t do this, you’re going to wind up with one of those.” Emmett pointed to his brother’s black eye. “Or worse.”

  “Man, you think you can hit me?”

  “It wouldn’t be me doing the hitting.”

  “I could,” Edward volunteered.

  Emmett rubbed his temple. “You’re not helping.”

  “It’s that cop, Vass, ain’t it?”

  “I wish it was,” Emmett told him.

  “Is it Luther?”

  “It’s not Luther.”

  “It’s somebody badder than Luther?”

  “Badder than Luther,” Emmett said.

  Freddie’s expression turned dour. “Can I get somethin’ to eat before we go?” he asked, a last request.

  “Sure.”

  After Mrs. Poole fixed Freddie a sandwich, she pulled Emmett aside. “We’re running low on food. Thought I should tell you. I could go to the market, but….”

  “No, don’t. Write me a list. I’ll bring home groceries.”

  “Should we get enough for three people or for four?” She was worried about Freddie. Emmett was too.

  “If I can’t lose that guy outside, we might have to get enough for five.”

  While Freddie ate the sandwich that heralded the end of their food, Emmett described his game plan.

  “Oh, jeez. All right,” Freddie reluctantly agreed. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Emmett kept watch from the back porch as Freddie slithered along the side of the house to the middle of the driveway, where he crouched to wait for the signal, then Emmett began carting the boxes out the front door, struggling down the steps as though they were heavy. He put three of them in the trunk, filling it to capacity.

  Emmett had the last box in his arms when Edward said, “Gonna shake him this time?”

  “Even better. He’s going to think he’s found Freddie. That way he won’t come back here.”

  “Some feat. That’d make you a magician.”

  “No,” Emmett said, recollecting the comment Freddie had made about Houdini outside the bail bonds office. “Just the talented assistant.”

  He lugged the final box outside and pretended it wouldn’t fit in the trunk. The passenger seat was the only space left. He opened the door, the sign for Freddie to slink over, screened by the car, and acted as if he was orienting the box on the seat as Freddie climbed into the foot well.

  “See. Being short can be an asset sometimes.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Stop talkin’ and start drivin’.”

  Emmett reversed out of the driveway and the Olds pursued, the outline of the driver’s Borsalino visible above the wheel.

  “He took the bait.”

  “Congratulations. I feel like a pretzel.” Freddie was worming around to reposition himself.

  “You’d feel worse if you were with the guy who’s following us.”

  “What’s that stuff?” He pointed at the passenger-side headrest. A prominent smudge of dried blood striped the leather.

  “It’s not motor oil.”

  “Is it blood? Whose blood is it?”

  “It’s Cyril’s.”

  “You beat him up?”

  “I didn’t. He did.” Emmett thumbed backward.

  As the Delta coupe fell in behind them, Emmett recounted the sad tale of Vernon Young’s death, including the dilemmas that resulted in its wake and the mix-up that now involved Freddie. When he was through, Emmett told him what had happened to Cyril and to his mother and tried to reassure him.

  “I took them to the hospital. You don’t have to worry.”

  “I’m not. Not about Cyril.”

  “Your mom’s going to be okay, Freddie.”

  He nodded blankly, taking it all in. “So this guy in the car, he thinks I’m that Otis cat, and what? He wants to rough me up?” Huddled beneath the dashboard, he looked young and vulnerable, like a stowaway on a sinking ship.

  The truth wasn’t kind, but Freddie was entitled to it. “No,” Emmett said soberly. “He wants to kill you.”

  THIRTY

  The beauty of a cage was its simplicity. Light and air could come in and out freely. Whatever or whoever was inside could not.

  Through a hole in the ceiling above the pen, Meers was peering down at Calvin Timmons, who remained unconscious, sleeping fitfully in the cage. Meers entered the pen only when delivering the food. Otherwise, he spent his free hours clandestinely watching his captives, face pressed to the hole in the floor of the old storeroom, his private version of a peep show.

  The cage was one of Meers’s finest accomplishments. Perfect in concept and execution, it gave him almost as much satisfaction as the hunts. Designed to specific dimensions with certain features that would have appeared questionable had he hired somebody to fabricate it for him, Meers had set about building the cage himself. The abandoned zinc refinery gave him space to work. He had purchased an
acetylene torch and tanks, a welder’s mask, and all the raw materials necessary for assembly, then studied up on the welding process by reading instructional manuals. Meers burned his fingers badly and often practicing the skill. Eventually, the burns healed and his masterpiece came to life, iron bar by iron bar.

  He also cobbled together a pulley system, enabling him to open the cage’s trapdoor from the floor above with a winch. That prevented his prey from seeing him while granting them a head start. If Meers didn’t give them a five-minute lead, the game finished too quickly. Such was the complication with Ambrose Webster. He had been as bad as the women.

  Twice Meers had tried using females, two separate times with the same disastrous results. Both were prostitutes, easy to entice into his car, however they disintegrated into hysterics as soon as they regained consciousness and realized where they were. They had begged and pleaded and promised him their bodies. But Meers didn’t want their bodies. He wanted them to run. Moronic as mules, they stood at the entrance hatch, petrified and trembling, frustrating him. Each ran screaming through the tunnels without getting far before falling. The deafening echo irritated Meers so much that he dispatched each of them shortly after the games had begun. He dumped their bodies in the desolate reaches of Newark Bay under cover of night, food for the fish.

  Ambrose Webster was almost as pathetic. Meers had been forced to fire at him with his pistol the way one would startle a horse into racing. The shot sent Webster lumbering off, though he repeatedly dropped the flashlight Meers had generously furnished him. Meers always left a flashlight in the cage along with copious amounts of food to maintain his pets’ energy and endurance. Like his standard five-minute head start, the flashlight was a practical measure. Without any sort of defense against the absolute darkness of the sewer tunnels, his prey would be incapacitated, and there would be no sport in the hunt. To keep things relatively fair, Meers purchased cheap plastic flashlights, too flimsy to be implemented as weapons. Strength and speed were his prey’s God-given weapons, gifts nature had not bestowed upon him. Meers was simply leveling the playing field.