IF DUNLOW HAD been a problem for Rake before, now he was a crisis. He had despised Boggs’s and Smith’s very souls from the moment they had taken their oaths, and now he was convinced they’d killed one of his favorite informants.
Rake tried pointing out that he had no evidence and was going solely on the word of two Negro bootleggers who would also testify, if called, that they were drunk that night. Yet Dunlow was not to be reasoned with. He insisted he would find more evidence—finally, the man seemed motivated to do his job—but he also claimed they already had plenty. This wasn’t for a criminal trial, after all, it was just to get the Negroes off the force. Once that happened, it wouldn’t be Dunlow’s problem any longer.
Rake felt his fate becoming ever more tightly entwined with his partner’s. He needed to cut himself free now, before things got worse. Which meant closing the case of the former Negro Jane Doe. Determining the link between Dunlow and Underhill. Either finding evidence that Dunlow had been involved in a murder or, at the very least, convincing his superiors to get him a new partner.
So he continued tailing Underhill. Twice in one week he tailed him to Mama Dove’s brothel, two blocks from the Decatur Street tracks. It was located farther away from the bars and nightclubs than most of the whorehouses, which seemed part of its allure. It was still in Darktown, but in a slightly more upscale corner of it, so that the white johns didn’t feel like they were risking their lives to satiate themselves. The white cops had no problem with a brothel in Darktown, and in fact had a disincentive to shutting her down: Mama Dove paid them off handsomely.
Rake hadn’t actually seen her pay Dunlow, but he’d gathered what was happening when it had occurred. It had been a couple of months ago: Rake had been ordered to stay in the car while Dunlow ran inside. Less than ten minutes later, Dunlow was back, and they were driving away. Rake had been tempted to crack a line about how speedy a lover Dunlow was, but he’d thought the better of it.
The third time Dunlow had paid such a visit, he apparently decided Rake was worthy of his trust: he handed Rake a crisp ten-dollar bill, his cut.
Rake had said no thanks.
Dunlow had insisted, deeply insulted.
Rake had said no thanks.
They had not spoken much for the remainder of that shift, and Dunlow had never again paid a visit to Mama Dove’s while Rake was with him. Rake had little doubt the visits continued. He told himself his rejection of Dunlow was noble and not stupid, hoping he’d not cost himself far more than ten dollars.
Though Underhill was no longer a cop, his visit to Mama Dove’s the other night had been about as brief as Dunlow’s were. If he wasn’t visiting her to jump in bed with a girl, why was he visiting?
Five nights after tailing Underhill to the brothel the first time, Rake had been in the middle of a shift—driving alone, as Dunlow was at the station and Rake was returning after assisting with an arrest—when he happened upon Underhill’s Buick at an intersection. They’d been across from each other, heading opposite ways on Ponce. When the light had turned green, Underhill had continued east, so Rake went west for a block, then pulled a U-turn and tailed him, from farther away this time, since he was rather conspicuous in a squad car. By the time he was a few blocks from Mama Dove’s, he’d figured out where the man was headed. He pulled the squad car over a block from the brothel. From there he saw Underhill pull over, get out, and walk up to the front door, not even knocking as he entered.
He was there less than five minutes.
Rake then headed back to the station. The final two hours of his shift passed uneventfully. After clocking out, but still in uniform, he drove back to Mama Dove’s.
The brothel was an old Victorian whose dark purple paint job did not look quite so garish at night as it did by day. At this hour, it almost blended in with its neighbors, except for the fact that in those other homes, the lights were out.
Rake parked beneath a crape myrtle whose sagging branches were years overdue for a trim. He could hear jazz from a record player calling through the open windows.
He hadn’t even knocked on the door yet when it was opened by a black woman with long curly hair. She wore a scarlet silk dress with a purple design of dragons and Asian script, and several necklaces of varying lengths. Some were gold; others held red or blue or purple stones. The getup made her look like some Negro-geisha-gypsy blend, Rake thought. Her hair was gray in places and she might have been twice his age, but he was struck by the beauty in her powerful eyes.
“Well, hello, a man in uniform,” she said theatrically. She was used to commanding a room, even one as small as this foyer. There was a closed door behind her, and through its beveled glass Rake could just make out human shapes. The bouncy swing jazz and the angled panes made those forms move in strange ways. “I assume this is pleasure, because you and I have never done business.”
Her voice was dripping with innuendo yet he proceeded with the most officious voice he could muster. “Ma’am, I was hoping to ask you a few questions about a gentleman I’ve seen frequent this place.”
She raised her right, fastidiously plucked eyebrow. “Really, you’ve seen a gentleman frequent this place? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I was hoping you could explain to me why Brian Underhill drops by here so often, but only for a couple of minutes at a time.”
“Bad lay?”
“How about another reason?”
“I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know the name. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do—”
He grabbed one of her forearms before she could move. She gave him a scolding look, and he released her, but not without a rough squeeze to let her know she’d best not try again to slip away.
“Ma’am, as I’m sure you know, we have some Negro officers now. And I must say, they are rather anxious to shut you down. They don’t like having a whorehouse in an otherwise respectable colored neighborhood. And you know what, ma’am? They shouldn’t. I wouldn’t want one in my neighborhood either. But it’s cops like me who have been keeping them from raiding you. So I would appreciate it if you dropped with the playacting and just answered my questions straight for a moment. Or maybe I’ll add a white voice to the black choir that’s trying to convince the head of Vice to shut you down.”
She sighed, then leaned against the door. “I hate dealing with rookies. You can be so tiresome with your ethics and procedure and whatnot.”
“I’m sure I’ll grow out of it soon enough.”
“You will.”
“Tell me about Brian Underhill.”
“Aren’t you supposed to identify yourselves when you come knocking on folks’ doors?”
“My name is Officer Dennis Rakestraw, ma’am.”
“All right, that’s better. Now, why don’t you start by telling me just how little you know about Mr. Underhill?”
“I know he’s an ex-cop and he comes here so briefly that the only thing he could be doing is exchanging money.”
“That’s it?”
He felt belittled, so he said more than he should have. “He’s also suspected in the murder of a young Negro woman.” Which wasn’t true—he wasn’t officially a suspect, except perhaps in Rake’s eyes. “So I’m asking again, why does he come here?”
“He’s not a john, honey. He’s a competitor.”
“He does what you do?”
“He thinks of himself as a . . . talent scout.”
“He takes your girls?”
“The right kind.”
“What’s the right kind?”
“Whatever his people are looking for.”
“Who are his people?”
She laughed. “He certainly doesn’t tell me.”
“Come on. The girls he takes, you’ve never been able to ask them who it was he took them to?”
Her neck seemed to contract as her jaw lowered, and she didn’t look like she’d be laughing again anytime soon. “Officer Rakestraw. We’re talking about a former policeman who takes my best-looking girls to the nicest neighborhoods in town. People who wouldn’t dream of coming down here, but want it all the same, and need it to come out to them. Now, who do you think his clients are?”
“What do you get out of it?”
“He gives me a little something, and I do mean a little.” So despite the fact that Underhill was only an ex-cop, he still managed to make her feel that he had enough friends in the Department that she couldn’t cross him. He would come along and raid her roster whenever he needed to, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. “He thinks it’s enough to make me not mind that I’m losing my girls. It’s not.”
“Losing your girls—you don’t mean you never hear from them again?”
“I usually don’t.”
“Does anyone hear from them?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Her face was blank, the kind of blank that shows a clear preference that some other subject be discussed. Rake felt chilled. He couldn’t tell if she meant that the girls simply vanished into some other life or if she was implying that they were eventually killed.
“What can you tell me about Lily Ellsworth?” he asked.
“I’ve never had a girl with that name.”
He wished he was better at spotting lies. And he had the feeling he was up against a true bullshit artist. He didn’t have a chance against her, he just had to ask a lot of questions and try to piece her answers together later.
“Really? I would not be pleased to find out later that she was here and you lied to me about it.”
“Officer Rakestraw, I’m being forthright. I’ve never heard the name Lily Ellsworth before. Now, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t here once, but under a different name. I’d bet half the girls in here are using names other than those their parents baptized them with, but how am I to know? If you really want to know if this girl was ever here, show me a picture of her.”
She said that like it was a bit of obvious police work he was a fool not to know. He felt the blood rise to his cheeks.
“Light-skinned, long dark hair, birthmark on her right shoulder. Nineteen, thin, moved to Atlanta from Peacedale sometime in the last year. Last seen in a yellow dress and a silver locket. That help?”
She threw up her hands, red and blue stones catching the dim light. “Maybe. But light-skinned, long-haired girls from the country do grow on trees, so a photo would be better.”
He was deeply tired of this woman. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem remarkably unfazed by the fact that one of your girls was murdered.”
“First of all, she wasn’t one of my girls—at least, I don’t know for sure without that photo. And second of all, alas, I’m remarkably used to it.”
“So this sort of thing happens a lot to your girls.”
“How new at this are you, son?” She put a hand on her hip and cocked her head a bit. “A black whore gets killed, that ain’t exactly front-page news. The only thing I am fazed by right now is the fact that a cop is here bothering about her. Why? What was so special about this girl?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe I’m just too hung up on my pesky ethics right now.”
The hand fell from her hip and her expression changed to one of sympathy, or mock sympathy. Her fake emotions were difficult to keep up with.
“I know you’re very tired, Officer. I know just the thing for a tired young man like you, something that will truly perk you up. I have an amazing array to choose from. Mr. Underhill doesn’t take all my best girls, if you’d like to see for yourself ?”
She stepped to the side, so he could see that one of her hands was at the inner door’s knob, ready to turn if he said the word. It was undeniably tempting as he stood there, realizing that behind that door were untold pleasures. Rake had been with only three women, two of them whores in Europe. He had sworn that nonsense off when he’d returned from the war alive, and he considered himself lucky to have Cassie, even if they were always exhausted lately, sex having become a distressingly rare occurrence. Still, plenty of other cops indulged, so why not him? Why did he have to be such a saint?
He could hear those voices whispering in his ear, but he did his best to ignore them. He held up his left hand, thumbing his wedding ring.
“This mean anything to you?”
She laughed. “Should it?”
He tipped his cap. “Good night, Mrs. Dove.”
She laughed again, as if she’d never heard anyone address her that way.
He was halfway down the steps when she said, “It’s rather sad, I must say. You coming to me for this information. I would think an officer in your position would be able to ask one of his colleagues what he needed to know about me. Yet you came here.” He looked back at her and saw she was shaking her head, this time wearing not so much a sympathetic expression as a pitying one. With a trace of malice. “You must not have many friends on the force.”
He would wish for a long while that he’d come up with a better retort than “Good night,” before walking back to his lonely Ford.