Another voice said, “Six fucking bucks.”
“Pull him up.”
He was sliding up the wall, his back scraping against the rough brick.
“Right there.”
He knew that he was standing again, and that the fist was coming toward his face like a hard, white light. Beyond the lights, he could hear the whirr of the fist as it plunged through the air toward him, and the voices around, and the helpless, broken groan that came from inside him. He heard them over and over until something hit the ground as he slumped forward again, a piece of metal which clattered onto the street.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” someone said.
And instantly, he knew that they had gone, had left him sprawled out in the alley. He opened one eye, then another, and he could see what had frightened them, what had dropped from his pocket, and now shined toward him from the gutterwash. He squinted fiercely to keep it in his view, and realized that he could make out the details, but no longer the design: POLICE ATLANTA.
2
It was four in the morning when the phone rang, and Alvin Clemons did not move to answer it. It rang a second time, then a third, and finally his wife, Mildred, shifted over to the nightstand, flipped on the lamp and answered it herself.
“For you,” she said, tapping the receiver lightly on her husband’s shoulder.
Alvin turned over onto his back and took the phone. “Yeah?”
The voice on the other end belonged to Fred Pitman, a homicide lieutenant who was manning the graveyard shift at the headquarters on Somerset Terrace.
“It’s Frank,” Pitman said. “Again. Only this time somebody gave him a pretty bad beating.”
Alvin sat up quickly. “Beating?”
“That’s right,” Pitman said. “Outside that place over on Glenwood, the Bottom Rail.”
“Dear God,” Alvin whispered. He glanced knowingly at Mildred, who shook her head despairingly.
“Two patrolmen are with him,” Pitman continued, “rookies, more or less, but they know how to keep their mouths shut.”
“Good,” Alvin said, “you make sure they do. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
He hung up and rolled himself out of the bed.
“Somebody beat him up, Alvin?” Mildred asked.
Alvin pulled a shirt from the doorknob of his closet. “Yeah.”
“Sheila did the right thing letting him go,” Mildred said.
“I guess,” Alvin said. He buttoned the first button, then the second, hoping Mildred would just shut up about it.
“Someday you’ll have to, Alvin,” she said. “Let him go, I mean.”
He buttoned the last button, then grabbed for his pants. “He’s my brother, Mildred.”
“And you’ve done everything you can for him,” Mildred said. “Brought him to Atlanta, got him on the force. What else is expected? Huh? What else?”
“His daughter killed herself,” Alvin said, suddenly looking his wife straight in the eye. “Who knows what I might do if Maryann did that.”
“He was on his way already,” Mildred said, almost disgustedly.
Alvin tightened his belt, grabbed his pistol from the top shelf of the closet and fled the room. “Get some sleep,” he said as he closed the door. “I’ll call you when I know the details.”
Mildred waved her hand. “Don’t bother.”
The drive in from Decatur took longer than he expected, but the two patrolmen were still waiting when he got there. They were both standing idly in the alley, one of them smoking a cigarette, the other sipping at a can of Pepsi. They straightened themselves quickly as Alvin got out of the car and began walking toward them.
“How bad is he?” Alvin asked.
“He took a pounding,” one of the officers said. “We’ve got him in the back of the car here.”
Alvin bent over and peered into the rear of the patrol car. He could see Frank balled up in the seat, his arms folded around his midsection, his knees pulled up toward his chest.
“Dear God,” Alvin said.
“He didn’t want to be taken anywhere,” one of the patrolmen said.
Alvin glanced at the identification tag on his uniform: Billings. “You been on the force long?” he asked him.
“No, sir,” Billings said.
Alvin nodded. “Well, you did the right thing calling Homicide. We’ll keep this an in-house operation.”
Billings reached into the pocket of his uniform and pulled out a badge. “We found this on the street. That’s what tipped us off.”
Alvin took the badge and dropped it into his pants pocket. “Thanks. I’m much obliged to both of you.” He opened the back door of the patrol car and pulled Frank out, bringing him ponderously to his feet. “Come on, little brother,” he whispered. “Let’s get you home.”
It was almost dawn by the time Alvin finally managed to drag Frank up the stairs and deposit him on the stained green sofa that sat in the middle of the living room.
It was a dingy room, with unpainted walls and a linoleum-covered floor. There were no pictures on the walls, no curtains on the windows, just a set of Venetian blinds which drooped to the left and rattled softly when the wind blew through the blades.
“You ought to dump this place, Frank,” Alvin said as he brought a wet dishcloth in from the small kitchen and began gently daubing the bruises on his brother’s face.
Frank brushed his hand away. “No more Good Samaritan shit, Alvin.” He nodded toward the chair opposite the sofa. “Sit down. Relax. I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not,” Alvin said. He dropped the cloth into Frank’s lap. “Do it yourself, then.”
Frank picked up the cloth and held it against one swollen eye. “Thanks for coming to get me,” he said quietly.
Alvin nodded quickly. “What happened?”
Frank shrugged. “There were a few of them. I’ll settle up.”
Alvin leaned forward in his seat. “No, you won’t, Frank. You either file a formal complaint and let the department handle it—I mean a formal complaint, the paperwork, everything—you either do that, or you forget it.” He shook his head exasperatedly. “You can come into headquarters in the morning looking like you just got hit by a bus. That’s fine, no questions asked. It’s all been handled. But you go after those guys, that’s it, Frank. You’re hanging by a thread anyway, and I can tell you, the department’ll slam-dunk you for the smallest thing. You might say, they’re looking for a reason.”
Frank glanced away wearily, his eyes staring at the naked bulb which hung in the small kitchen.
“You’re a good man, Frank,” Alvin said, with a sudden gentleness, “but you got bad weaknesses. Remember what Daddy used to say: ‘The weakest thing in the world is a strong man who can’t control himself.’”
Frank shifted his eyes over toward his brother, but said nothing.
“I mean, you got to pull it all back together somehow, Frank,” Alvin continued. “You got to learn to finish things. You know what I mean? You went to college for three years, busted your butt in night school, then, after all that, dropped out.” He shook his head. “Then you married Sheila.” He squinted slightly. “How long you married to her, eighteen, nineteen years?”
“Twenty,” Frank said.
“Then divorce, after all that time.”
“I married her when I was nineteen and she was seventeen, Alvin,” Frank said.
“So what? It’s still the same problem,” Alvin said. “You don’t finish things.”
Frank swabbed his neck with the dishcloth. It felt very cool against the morning heat that was beginning to rise all around him.
Alvin looked at Frank pointedly. “Sheila wasn’t so bad,” he said. “Okay, maybe you two weren’t made for each other. Who is, Frank? Grow up.” He glanced around the room, taking in its dishevelment. “At least she kept a clean house, had a hot meal on the table for you when you came home.”