A block from the Uhuru Community shantytown, Frings leaned against a burned-out light post and smoked a reefer, his hat tilted back on his head, feeling the sun on his face. He was here early, not wanting to make Carla wait, what with her doing him a favor.
He’d stopped off at the office before coming over and been rewarded with a call from Klein over at Police Records. The Community assaults had been assigned to a Sergeant Ed Wayne, who had that beat. The name rang no bells. He’d run it by Westermann, see if he was familiar with Sergeant Wayne.
He saw a cab several blocks off, headed his way. He took a last drag off the reefer and tossed it down a storm drain. The sky, he noticed, was a particularly deep blue, with high white clouds hanging almost motionless. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and tilted his hat down to get the sun off his face. A hell of a lot of birds were chirping away up on the power lines and pecking around in the field by the shanties. Frings didn’t like birds. He wasn’t sure why.
The cab pulled up and Carla stepped out, looking, Frings thought, very prole with a scarf over her head and her modest, brownish clothes. Frings kissed her on the cheek.
Kids hung around the perimeter of the shantytown, throwing a makeshift ball of twine back and forth while younger kids chased. Carla smiled at them and they stopped, waiting for the adults to pass before they picked up their game again. Frings winked at the kids and followed Carla through a gap between two sheets of corrugated steel and into what felt like an oven. The stagnant air was heavy with the smells of spices, cooking meat, exotic incense, and cannabis smoke.
The alleys between the shacks were narrow, and Frings saw that most doors were open, allowing a view into hovels where women in bright dresses cooked over open fires and children played on the dirt floors. People, sweat beading on faces, eased sideways to let them by in the narrow passages. Some people clearly knew Carla, people nodding to her, some calling her by name. But Frings was aware that others looked at them with wariness and even hostility. It was understandable, he thought. There were no other white faces.
They ventured farther into the maze, Carla navigating between shanties made of cardboard, tin, and scrap lumber. Symbols were painted on many of the doors—intricate patterns, crosses—sometimes numbers, or words in French. On some walls hung plates of tin painted in bright colors, simple portraits of Negro men and women—their heads huge and topped with halos—framed by complicated and colorful patterns. Sometimes names were painted below the portrait. Senjak. Senjon. Samedi. Mama Loa. Brown.
“These are interesting. What are they?” Frings asked.
“Religious symbols. Portraits of saints. Many of the people here are from the islands. They brought their religion with them.”
“How does this fit with Father Womé?”
Carla laughed. “I don’t think he worries very much about it. From what I’ve heard, he seems to embrace the Square.”
“What’s the Square? Womé mentioned it, too.”
“The Square? I can show you the place. It’s where the islanders hold their rituals. I’m told the whole Community comes out sometimes. It’s kind of the center of the Community. The Square and Father Womé, of course. It’s over here.”
She led him to a dirt plaza, maybe twenty yards to a side, bordered by shanties. Chairs were placed sporadically along the edge, and large, unlit candles sat bunched in the center. A group of older men had pulled chairs in a circle and were chatting and drinking coffee from battered tin cups. They turned in their chairs, postures wary, to see Frings and Carla.
Carla waved. “I’m here to see Billy Lambert.”
One of the men, thin, wearing a bowler and dark glasses, asked, “What you want that boy for?”
“I’m his friend. I heard he was hurt.”
The old man nodded. “He was beat down good. In yonder house.” He motioned with his head to the opposite side of the square.
“I know where he lives,” Carla said. “Thank you.”
Frings flashed a smile and noticed they were passing a pipe. No one smiled back.
Billy Lambert lived in a tiny shack amid dozens of other similar shacks. While they were essentially the same size, their construction was incredibly diverse because they had been pieced together from whatever materials were available in whatever quantity: tin, steel, wood, cardboard, canvas, plank, parts of abandoned cars. Again, the symbols and the paintings. Lambert’s door was marked with a symbol that looked like a cross on a stand, outlined and then filled in with loose cross-hatching.
Carla knocked lightly on the door. “Billy?”
“Yeah. Come.”
Carla pushed the door open and they entered the dim shack, a cot taking up about a quarter of the floor space. On the cot lay a young man with very dark skin, wearing only a pair of slacks.
“Billy,” Carla said again, tentative.
“Mrs. Bierhoff.” Billy raised himself up on an elbow. His voice was slurred, the words indistinct around the edges.
“Oh my God, Billy.” Carla said it calmly, more in sympathy than in shock. Frings took a closer look. Somebody had really had a go at the kid. Both eyes were swollen, the right one basically shut. His lips were bruised and puffy, and an angry gash ran above an eyebrow. If the rest of his body was in the same shape as his face …
Carla fussed over him, folding his pillow so that it propped him up a little. She retrieved a bottle onto which someone had shellacked a newsprint image of a saint—Frings thought it might be St. George slaying a dragon. Billy accepted it, took a couple of shallow sips, and lay back into the pillow. She noticed a guitar case and bedroll in the corner and asked Billy if he played.
“No, ma’am, I’ve got a guest.” He looked at Frings.
Carla introduced Frings as a newspaper reporter. “He’s trying to learn more about the attacks outside the Community.”
Billy nodded, friendly but wary.
Frings didn’t even have to ask; Billy told the story, his island accent pronounced even though his swollen lips slurred his speech.
“Me and Tom Belgrave was coming back from passing out papers down by City Hall. We’d been there all day. It was night, you know, and there’s a couple blocks were there’s no streetlights and it’s real dark; real dark. Me and Tom were walking down on these blocks and hear a car behind us, running slow, and we get real nervous ’cause a few others been beaten this last week. But you can’t outrun no car, no? So we just walk along and the car gets right up next to us and is just cruising right beside us and we can’t see inside the windows ’cause it’s so dark. Well, the car stops and those doors open and out comes three men with bats and we didn’t have no chance to run. Those men just start swinging and down we went, and they give us several whacks while we down on the ground, covering our heads, like, and they’re screaming nigger and commie and commie nigger and all, and I’m just praying that they stop before they kill me.” He paused to take another sip from his bottle.
Carla asked, “Do you know who they were?”
“No. They’s wearing something over their faces, makes it hard to see what they look like. They’re ofays, though. No doubting that.”
Frings again took in the damage to Billy Lambert. This was what he’d really come to see, the seriousness of the crime. No way the police would ignore an assault like this on a white kid. Lambert’s story was useful, but essentially just confirmed what Frings had already assumed. The important part was the police reaction.
Frings asked, “Did you talk to the police?”
“Yeah. Sergeant came with another man, but they just asked a couple questions, that’s all. Never heard from them again. They didn’t even talk to Tom, look around where we got beat. Those kids that play on the street say the coppers just get back in their car and drive away. If there’s a copper car around, those kids see, they let me know. Cops came back last night, but not for this. Kids say they were down on the river, searching.”
Frings nodded. “You remember the name of the sergeant you spoke with?”
“Nah.” Billy shook his head. “I was still hurting then, not keeping track of the names.”
“Maybe Sergeant Wayne?”
Carla looked at Frings, as if she was wondering what he knew.
“Yeah,” Billy said. “Coulda been.”
“How’s your buddy?”
“What? Tom? Like me, I guess. Laying low.”
Frings thought for a moment, then looked over at Carla. She frowned, nothing more to add.
Frings said, “Billy, I’m really sorry about what happened to you. You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”
“Yes, Billy. Thank you so much,” Carla added. “I hope you get back on your feet soon.”
Billy nodded. “You going to get those bastards what did this?”
“We’re going to get the police to get them.”
Billy snorted cynically and went back to his bottle.