Streets of Fire

He was already back on his feet when he heard footsteps moving toward him from the entrance of the garage. He turned immediately and saw Luther walking toward his own car.

Luther slowed when he saw Ben, nodded quickly, then walked over.

‘What are you doing down here?’ he asked.

‘Checking a few things out.’

‘On the Black Cat?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What things?’

‘This business with Breedlove and the Langleys,’ Ben said. ‘Some of it doesn’t fit together very well.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, that second handprint on the trapdoor, for one,’ Ben told him. ‘It wasn’t mine.’

‘So what?’ Luther asked. He shook his head dismissively. ‘That could have been anybody’s. It could be one of the Langleys’.’

‘Why would they come in their own house through a dirty crawlspace?’

‘Maybe because they got shit for brains, Ben,’ Luther said irritably. ‘Those two never did have much sense, you know.’

Ben looked at him doubtfully.

‘Or it could have been a burglar,’ Luther added. ‘Somebody trying to break in.’

Ben said nothing.

‘You don’t think so?’ Luther asked crisply.

‘No.’

‘Why not? You know something I don’t?’

‘Well, I think I know where Breedlove went the night he died,’ Ben said.

Luther took a small step toward him. ‘You do? Where?’

‘A gravel pit over in Irondale.’

‘What was he doing over there?’

‘Looking for a body.’

‘A body?’ Luther asked unbelievingly. ‘Whose body?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ben told him.

‘What do you know?’ Luther demanded. ‘I mean, for sure.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, where’d you come up with this bullshit about Irondale and a body?’

‘From the Langleys.’

Luther chuckled. ‘And you believed them?’

‘The day Kelly Ryan died,’ Ben began slowly, his mind suddenly drawing back to the dank room, the sound of the rain, the gentle sway of the body, ‘Daniels was talking about how Ryan had always thought that Teddy and his brother had killed a colored man and buried him in a chert pit in Irondale.’ He started to continue, then stopped.

Luther watched Ben silently, his face almost motionless. ‘Well, go ahead,’ he said impatiently.

Ben remained silent, still trying to bring the entire scene back into his mind.

‘What are you getting at, Ben?’ Luther demanded.

Ben did not answer. Over the patter of the rain, he struggled to hear again all the voices he’d heard that day in Kelly’s room. He heard phrases, muttered words, strained laughter. All of it tumbled chaotically in his mind.

‘This whole business with Kelly Ryan sounds like bullshit to me,’ Luther said sternly. ‘And we don’t have time to go on wild-goose chases.’

Ben nodded, his eyes staring straight ahead, focused on the dark-green car which was parked only a few feet away. It was the same car he’d seen only a few days ago as it sat parked next to the edge of Kelly Ingram Park, but it looked different now. Before it had been dusty, and Ben remembered the track which Langley had left in the dust on its hood when he’d slid off it. But now it gleamed softly, despite the dark air which surrounded it, and in the sheen which spread across it, he could tell that it had not only been recently washed, but carefully and meticulously waxed as well.

‘Whose car is that?’ Ben asked as he nodded toward it.

Luther turned to look. ‘That green one?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s Daniels’ car,’ Luther said.

Ben’s mind raced back to Kelly Ryan’s dreary bedroom. He saw it frozen before him, each man in a place that now seemed oddly destined for him, some of them in the open, full of their belief, while others waited in the wings, silently holding to the curtain.

‘Daniels,’ he whispered.

‘That’s right, Daniels,’ Luther repeated loudly. ‘Looks like he’s finally give it a wash.’

Ben nodded. ‘I wonder why,’ he said almost to himself.

‘Probably for Breedlove’s funeral,’ Luther said matter-of-factly. ‘They were partners, after all.’

FORTY-TWO

Charlie Breedlove’s funeral was held late in the afternoon at a small graveyard outside Birmingham. Several neighbors gathered beside the grave, but only Daniels and Ben came from the department, and they stood side by side, perched beneath a maple tree, and watched as Mrs Breedlove and her son wept softly in the fading light.

‘Nobody’s safe,’ Daniels said mournfully after the service had ended. ‘Maybe it’s true, you know.’

‘What?’

‘About how the good die young.’

Ben did not answer. He could see Breedlove’s wife and son as they stood peering down into the grave. He wondered how much Breedlove had told them, how much they knew of what he really was.

‘You know what really bothers me about all the trouble we’re having down here now?’ Daniels asked suddenly.

Ben shook his head.

‘The fact that so many innocent people get drawn into it,’ Daniels said. ‘White and colored. I mean, you take all these little kids they got locked up downtown. Shit, Ben, the most of them don’t have the slightest idea what they’re doing.’ He bowed his head slightly and dug the toe of his shoe into the ground. ‘And as far as Charlie’s concerned, we may not ever know what he did, or if he did anything at all.’

‘Well,’ Ben said tentatively, ‘we do know what happened to him, though.’