Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen

Author:Thomas Mullen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria / 37 Ink

23

“POUR ME SOME of the good stuff, Feckless, on the rocks.”

The bar’s owner raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t partake.”

Smith asked, “You gonna rat me out?”

Atlanta police officers were not supposed to drink. Plenty of white cops did—some while on shift—yet the Negro cops knew that if they dared cross that line, they ran the risk of losing their jobs should someone report it. Smith had reached the point where he was willing to take that risk, small though it was. He was among friends here at the Rook, which had become one of the destination night spots on Auburn Avenue. Packed on the weekends, it hosted bluesmen and jazz bands not just from the South but from across the country, folks like Dizzy Gillespie, Bird, and Thelonious Monk stopping by on tour. Past two in the morning, Smith wasn’t the only one who’d clocked out, as members of a local jazz band, silk ties loosened and faces still gleaming after their set, sat around a table eating their late-night snack of fried chicken. A few other stragglers were scattered at tables, Smith the sole man at the bar. Out of uniform, of course, he’d cocked his gray straw boater slantwise to make him harder to spot through the dark of the place, just in case anyone here felt like informing on a cop.

The owner of the Rook, pouring a double bourbon into Smith’s glass, was Lester Feck, aka Feckless. As a kid, the daily attendance call of “Feck, Lester” had at some point merged into his nickname. He’d worked moving freight at the rail yards for years. Smith had heard stories that Feckless had not always been an upstanding, law-abiding fellow, that perhaps some of the money he’d used to buy this place had come via illicit pursuits. But that was ancient history. It wasn’t where we came from that mattered, it was what we did once we got here. Smith understood that more than most.

“One of those nights, huh?” Feckless asked, pouring himself one as well. He held his glass in a toast. “The hell with today. Here’s to showing them tomorrow.”

“Amen.” Smith wouldn’t have minded drinking with Boggs—he felt they could use a few moments like this—but he could only imagine the reaction he’d receive from his partner. Alcohol? In our bodies? Just getting the man to shoot the occasional round of pool had been an accomplishment.

Yet in all other respects, life was easier for Boggs. Just was. Born to the right parents. Preacher money and a preacher house, even a preacher car they could borrow in emergencies. Boggs complained plenty about his old man, but he didn’t seem to realize how lucky he was to have him in his corner.

Tommy was heartsick for Hannah and Malcolm. They’d both worked so hard, climbing and climbing, hoping to reach not quite Boggs-level society but at least a little piece of the American dream. And when they finally thought they’d attained that much, it was being snatched from them.

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