Thrown-away Child

Jesus help me, I remember!” Sister went into something approaching a trance, which for once was genuine. “The snake got to pay for what she done. She got to pay for Willis Flagg. She got to pay for her lying church tongue, for making that man come after me, spoiling me. For making Daddy do what any daddy have to do, for making Mama so crazy she throw me away to Zeb Tilton!”
     

FORTY-FOUR

     
    “Maybe I’ll open a jazz joint when I get back to New York. I think I’d like that.”
    “You got time enough to run a club on top of the job?”
    “I’m thinking about leaving.”
    Leaving. It was the first time I had said it, right out loud in a simple, declarative sentence.
    “You kidding.”
    “No, I’m serious.”
    “Well then—you and me, we in that same boat.“
    “You know, Claude, I thought I’d be a cop until I croaked.”
    “There’s a bright side for you, Hock.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You got a wife.” Claude looked past me then and rose from his chair. “At least if you walk off the job, your wife going to be glad.”
    And there was Ruby. She had Teddy along with her. Claude took Ruby’s hands and pulled her toward him. There was an awkward second or two, with poor Claude looking back and forth between Ruby and me. Claude kissed Ruby’s cheek.
    I stood up and kissed Ruby on the lips. I felt sorry for Claude, but not that sorry.
    “Sit down, gentlemen.” Ruby looked up at the clock on the wall. In sixteen minutes it would be eleven. “We haven’t got much time.”
    “Time for what?” I asked.
    “Just sit down.”
    Ruby took a seat without answering. Claude and Teddy and I sat down, too. Seeing Ruby take a hand in a criminal case was a first for Claude and Teddy, as was the telepathy that seemed to be working between Ruby and me. And so it was only natural for them to be looking the way they did, like they were out of breath.
    “What’s your take on the brandings?” Ruby asked me.
    “Scare tactic, conveniently diversionary,” I said.
    “You’re reading me, aren’t you, Hock?”
    “I am.”
    “Y’all mind letting us in on the ESP?” Teddy asked.
    “It’s message murder,” I said. “Not in the psychopathic sense. In the American-pie greedhead sense. And crude enough for rabid cops to take care of the grunt work. By the way, the Jeep that three-man splatter squad used, it registers to Mueller.”
    “Mueller’s partners on and off duty with Eckles,” Claude said. “So that’s two of the hitters.”
    “You said it was a three-man squad,” Ruby said.
    “The other one’s got to be a detective by the name of Vonny LeMay,” I told her. “He’s got the Mueller and Eckles mind-set, which I saluted by cold-cocking him in Hippo’s office. Plus, at the power station, LeMay happens to know it’s all black boys inside before anybody from forensics comes out to say so.”
    “But back to the opening scene of the play,” Ruby said. “When did you figure it’s a three-man killing crew?”
    Claude spilled the inevitable beans. “Well, Hock spotted three men when they tried scaring him off with TEC-9s and—”
    “What?” Ruby glared at me. “You were shot?“
    “They missed, accidentally on purpose.” I could tell I was in for a long talk with Ruby later on that night, the one where she would go on about sitting with the commissioner and the mayor and his wig in a cemetery.
    “And then there were three different casing marks found at the power station massacre,” Claude said. “So anyhow, we got Mueller dead to rights. We can sweat him and Eckles into giving up LeMay, no problem.”
    “You mentioned a message,” Teddy said.
    “Myself, I learned the message in ’Nam,” I said. “Let’s say you want to take over a village but the locals don’t go for the idea. You could just blow them all away, but it wouldn’t be efficient.”
    “There’s a better idea?” Teddy asked.
    “Just kill a few villagers—throw-aways, let’s say. The rest take the hint.”
    “I see,” Teddy said. “And the brandings?”
    “That’s the diversion here, like Hock says.” Claude took over explaining. “The big boys want it to play like a bias crime—the MOMS bit. Like maybe some skinheads doing the city a favor by wiping out disreputable elements. Which everybody knows supposed to mean no-account brothers, and meaning everybody’s willing to forgive and forget anything that happen to them—and just move out the way.”
    Teddy shook his head. “I don’t know.