AFTERWARD, WHEN DUNLOW woke in his bedroom with a mouth so sandpaper dry that water wasn’t so much something he craved but something that didn’t even exist, couldn’t exist, and his head was pounding and he felt nearly ill enough to roll over and empty his insides then and there, he closed his eyes again and waited and waited for the awfulness to pass and eventually just enough of it did for him to raise himself out of bed.
What the hell had he done?
Tonight was his off night so at least he had that to be thankful for, but here it was five o’clock in the evening and he was waking up with a hangover from all he’d done that morning. The house was quiet, which meant his sons weren’t home, thank God, though his wife was probably in the kitchen or sitting on the front porch.
He sat there a while, trying to return to life. The phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, it’s Bo.”
“Hey.”
“Listen, I thought you’d want to hear it from me first. There ain’t gonna be no charges against the nigger cops, not murder anyhow. Homicide got someone else to confess to killing Poe.”
“What?”
“Some moonshiner. Name Illinois Richard mean anything to you?”
Dunlow thought, which was hard. “Former boxer. Got here from Birmingham maybe three years ago.”
“Well, he and Poe had a rivalry and were fighting over territory and he says he just happened to be walking down the street one night and there’s Poe all beat up. So he used his knife to finish the job, then dumped him in that creek on the other side of town. Boggs and Smith may have roughed Poe up, like your witness said, but they didn’t kill him.”
Dunlow was standing now, pacing despite his headache and the short length of the cord. “Bullshit! Why the hell would the nigger confess to that?”
“Two beat cops caught him this morning at the scene of another homicide. His girlfriend. No question on that one, and I guess he figured he’d be all manly and let us know about the other big deeds he’s done.”
“Hellfire. Smith and Boggs put him up to it. Had to.”
“Lionel.” Peterson paused. “I don’t like it no more’n you do. But Homicide is certain they got their man for Poe. There’s no way the nigger cops are gonna take no blame for it. They get off scot-free.”
“They still gotta answer to me, goddammit!”
Peterson’s voice shrunk in direct proportion to Dunlow’s. “I know.”
“So get your ass over here and we’ll make our plans.”
“I’m on shift.”
“That don’t mean nothing.”
“Dunlow. I’m calling you from the station.”
Dunlow didn’t care if some switchboard operator might be overhearing. Let them. Let them know that there were still some men willing to make sacrifices for everyone else.
“Get your ass over here later, then. I’m off tonight.”
“Well, that’s the other thing. It doesn’t appear that many other men have the same appetite as you do on this.”
“What?”
“I’m saying we don’t like it any more than you do, but the idea of taking action against uniformed officers of the law don’t seem like such a great idea, all right? I know they ain’t real cops and you know it but the mayor doesn’t seem to agree and neither does our chief.”
“You’re turning yellow, that it?”
“I ain’t yellow.”
“Yellowness is goddamn seeping out of this phone every time you open your mouth.”
“It ain’t being yellow, Dunlow. It’s knowin’ there’s a time and a place, and this ain’t it.”
The next thing Dunlow knew he wasn’t holding his phone anymore; it was smashed to pieces all over his bedroom. He would not lower himself to beg his fellow white men to aid him. He would not plead his case and he sure as hell would not repeat his mistake with Rake, trying to level with them and reveal things about himself he’d previously told no one. The time for talking was goddamn past.
He changed into fresh clothes, grabbed his keys and his gun.