Streets of Fire

‘Sure, you d-do,’ he said, still laughing. ‘Gimme the envelope, I’ll get it for you. I was just kidding you a little. I’ll put it in, give it right back.’

Daniels reluctantly handed him the envelope, then watched warily as the man walked back to his car and got in.

‘Here it is,’ the man said after a moment.

Ben looked toward the car. He could see a slender white envelope waving in the dark air.

Daniels walked over to the car. ‘You do business the right way, this whole town’ll be ours one day.’ He laughed coldly. ‘You must have learned by now that you could use a friend in high places.’

‘Sure enough,’ the man said happily. ‘Sounds g-good to me.’

Daniels leaned forward and reached for the envelope. Suddenly a short hiss broke the air. It sounded like a quick spurt of water. Then Daniels’ body staggered backward, his hands grabbing for his chest. Another hiss, this time with a short, stubby flash of orange, and Daniels’ face jerked upward, white in the moonlight, a jet of blood spurting from his forehead.

For one frozen instant Ben stood in place, unable to move. Then suddenly his body returned to him, and he sprang up out of the brush, grabbed his pistol and plunged through the undergrowth. The lights of the car shot through the deep green woods as it raced backward through the gravel, its rear tires churning up dusty arcs of loose dirt. As it sped away, the sound of its wheels peeling across the pavement were almost as thin and wrenching as Daniels’ final cry.

FORTY-FOUR

‘What did you hear exactly?’ Luther demanded.

Ben shook his head. ‘I already told you.’

Luther stared at him lethally. ‘I got two cops murdered in about as many days, Ben. Now I want some goddamn answers.’

‘They talked about a deal,’ Ben said wearily. He glanced at the clock over Luther’s desk. It was nearly three in the morning, and in the last two hours he’d sat in Luther’s cramped office and meticulously repeated his story at least twenty times.

‘But you couldn’t make out what it was?’ Luther asked.

‘It sounded like somebody had paid Daniels to set Langley up.’

‘For Breedlove’s murder?’

‘I think so.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘The Breedlove murder was only Daniels’ part of some deal,’ Ben told him. ‘The other man hadn’t done his part yet.’

‘And you have no idea what that part was?’

‘Only that it’s going off sometime before morning,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe over at the GM plant.’

‘We got that whole place surrounded,’ Luther told him.

‘But it may not be the GM plant,’ Ben said. ‘He just said, “GM. Before dawn.”’

The Chief slouched in the far corner, chewing a cigar, his eyes staring accusingly at Ben. His eyes were puffy with lack of sleep, but when he moved, it was in quick jerks, as if only his eyes were tired. ‘And you say this other fellow, he was a Nigra?’

‘Yes.’

‘How you know that for sure, Sergeant?’

‘By his voice.’

‘A lot of people stutter,’ Luther said.

‘It wasn’t the stuttering.’

‘Was it some kind of Nigra talk you heard?’

Ben shook his head. ‘Just his voice.’

‘So it might not a been a Nigra at all, is that right?’ the Chief said. ‘I mean, what about his face?’

‘I couldn’t tell in the dark.’

‘Course not,’ the Chief said. He thought a moment, then looked quickly at Luther. ‘Has the FBI got any colored agents?’ he asked.

Luther shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘’Cause this right here could be a set-up job all the way around,’ the Chief said. He looked at Ben. ‘Maybe Daniels was the real informer. Maybe he killed Breedlove to cover for hisself.’

Ben said nothing.

The Chief’s eyes drifted slowly toward the ceiling. ‘Maybe he was working for the FBI the whole time. Maybe the Justice Department. It wouldn’t matter. They all want us to look like a bunch of murdering animals down here.’ He took out what was left of his cigar and blew a column of thick smoke into the already stifling air. ‘And God knows they all want to get rid of me.’ He smiled at his own cleverness. ‘They could get two birds with one stone, you know?’ he said. ‘Get rid of me and Langley. Lord, that’d be paradise for them.’ He looked at Luther. ‘What do you think about that idea, Captain?’

‘It’s possible,’ Luther said.

The Chief chomped down on his cigar, popping the ashy tip up slightly. ‘What about you, Sergeant?’ he said to Ben.

Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you this,’ the Chief said. ‘If they try to drive me out of office, they‘ll have a hell of a fight on their hands.’ He considered it a moment longer, then crushed his cigar into the small ashtray on Luther’s desk. ‘The new mayor, he sure wants me out, too. Maybe Daniels cooked up something with him and his cronies.’

Ben said nothing.

The Chief shot one stubby finger into the air. ‘So we got the FBI, the Justice Department and the new city government, all of them wanting to get me out of office so they can put themselves or somebody they like in my place.’ He grimaced at the gall of such a conspiracy. ‘Lord, boys, we got to watch our backs.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Luther said immediately.