City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton (novels to read .txt) 📗

“We don’t truck with cops or cinder dicks.” His lips barely moved as the words came out. “You’re in the wrong place. Wrong time.”

His right hand came up fast. Brass knuckles wrapped around a fist headed my way. But I was faster, slashing my sap against his left temple. Training and experience had taught me how to swing the leather-covered piece of lead just enough to stop a man without killing him. It was all in the wrist.

I was in no mood to have my jaw rearranged or my brains scrambled. Experience had also made me especially wary of brass knucks; some of my former colleagues would have shot him for merely possessing them. His eyes rolled back, and he dropped straight down as if a trapdoor had suddenly opened beneath him. The others backed up.

I assessed them for a few seconds, the black come-along still dangling from my hand. “I’m not a cop or a railroad bull. This face. You seen him?” I showed the pic again and this time the men studied it.

“No need to get sore,” the thespian offered. “He’s about fifty yards that way, beyond the Okie truck with the piano in the bed. Give him a bottle, and he’ll tell you his life story. Claims he was a businessman, if you can believe that.”

I slid the sap back inside my belt, gave him a dime, and walked. I took a drag on the cigarette, which had survived the altercation, letting the tobacco settle my nerves. Sure enough, a Model T truck with wooden slats and an antique upright piano was parked beside a campfire. A raggedy family huddled next to it eating beans out of cans. Ten feet beyond, a man sat on his haunches, watching me.

I knelt down. He looked about my age with oily dark hair and a tattered muslin shirt, an army surplus blanket around his shoulders. His eyes took a moment to focus on me.

“Samuel Dorsey?”

“Sam. Who wants to know? I ain’t done nothing.”

“This is your lucky day, Sam,” I said. “Your family paid me to find you.”

“You a cop?”

“Private detective.”

“Well, gumshoe, I’ve got nothing for you or for them.” He used both hands to rub his face hard, as if he could rearrange his features into a different man. He was several days past a shave. “Lost my job when the plant closed and took to the rails. No greater shame than when a man can’t provide for his family.”

“Things change. Your wife wired me and said she’s come into an inheritance. She wants you to come home.”

He eyed me suspiciously, processing my words. Finally: “Her Uncle Chester. He was pushing ninety, and he was a rich man. Never did a thing for us.”

“Now he has.” I held out a wad of cash.

He reached for the bills, but I pulled them away.

“No, it doesn’t work that way. I’ll take you to Union Station and put you on the late train to Chicago. Back home.”

I’d be damned if he was going to use it on booze, whores, and gambling, ending up back here. Or being robbed by Mister Knuckleduster, once he got over the headache I’d given him.

He looked at me and started sobbing. “How can they want me now? After I walked out?”

“Maybe they love you.” I handed him a nail and lit it. He took a deep drag.

He didn’t think long. “Okay,” he shrugged. “I want to go home. You got a drink?” I shook my head. He hesitated, then stood, leaving the blanket on the ground.

Many people went missing in the Great Depression. Hardly any of it was as grotesque or glamorous as the Lindbergh kidnapping. Men lost their jobs and left their families. Sons and daughters disappeared. Bonus marchers were scattered and lost.

Looking for them was a big part of my business. It often started with a wire from Chicago or Cincinnati or Buffalo, then, if I thought I could help, a photo in the mail. I charged $25 to begin an investigation, another $25 if I found some usable information, and an even hundred if I found the person and could get them home. Money was tight all over, and happy endings were rare.

I walked him out of the camp and back up to the road.

“That’s a sweet flivver,” he said, indicating my red Ford Deluxe Coupe ragtop.

Opening the passenger door, I let him slide inside to admire it.

Then headlights caught me from behind, and a pickup slid in ahead of me to stop, throwing gravel like a hailstorm. “Stay here.” I closed the door.

Half a dozen tough mugs piled out of the truck bed. They were carrying baseball bats and cans of gasoline.

“Gene Hammons.” My name came from the driver walking toward me. I could have enjoyed an evening or a lifetime without seeing Kemper Marley.

“It’s dark for a ballgame, Kemper,” I said. “In fact, I don’t even see a baseball.”

“You always make me laugh, Hammons,” he said, unsmiling.

Kemper Marley was only twenty-six, but he looked older, with thin straight lips and a challenging glare in his eyes. In this light, one could see the old man he would turn into, if he lived that long. He had the posture and personality of a ball-peen hammer but decked out in a new Vic Hanny suit, bolo tie, and a gleaming Stetson, giving the lie to movie Westerns in which good guys wore white hats.

I folded my arms. “What are you going to do when Prohibition is repealed?”

“What Prohibition?” It was the answer I expected. Marley was the leading bootlegger in Phoenix.

His posse shifted restlessly behind him.

I said, “So what’s this?”

“We’re going to clear out this bunch,” he said. “Communists aren’t welcome in Phoenix. This country is on the brink.”

“And you’re going to roll back Bolshevism by burning out a bunch of poor Okies doing the best they can? There’s no Reds down there.”

He patted me on the shoulder, about as affectionately as a swipe from a mountain lion. “You were always