Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007
- Автор: Baldwin Barry, Campbell Melodie
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN:0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007». Краткое содержание книги:
“He followed a truck into the Denakil Desert where it disappeared over a dune. He saw a light somewhere. He said he saw the face of God.”
German Johnson was forever a day late and a dollar short. He had learned to fly airplanes before he was sixteen, but when he tried to enter aviator training in Tuskegee, their quota had already been met. Eventually he joined the Army, only to find himself building roads with an all-black engineering unit.
Toward the end of 1939, it looked as though his luck was changing. He was chosen for a squad of black soldiers being trained for special operations, who were eventually loaned to the British government. They were inserted into a group of Ethiopian rebels in an effort to discover and report the nature of an increased Nazi presence evidenced by submarine activity off the Ethiopian coast. German Johnson spent a year of exploring the country from the northeastern plateau to the sun-baked coastal plains, but without confirming anything useful, the operation was scrapped. The Italians were ousted, Emperor Haile Selassie returned from exile in England, and German Johnson returned to digging roads in some of the worst terrain ever conceived. When America entered the war in 1941, German Johnson kept digging roads.
Eventually the Nazis were defeated, Hitler committed suicide, President Truman bombed the Japanese, and German Johnson returned to a society that had no job for him. He became a man without direction. After eight years in uniform, his best available opportunity was waiting tables in a Harlem restaurant.
The Royce was located on Lenox Avenue, a short walk from 125th Street. It was a place whose name implied more elegance than it presented. The restaurant was owned by Leonard Royce, who had named the restaurant not for himself but for the Rolls-Royce he hoped it would allow him to afford.
Leonard was a big man — a towering six feet four inches tall with three gleaming gold upper teeth. He had a penchant for Cuban cigars and the music of the Caribbean in his voice. He never missed an opportunity to recount the lamentable failures of his life. He was a man made insecure by a limited intellect, and he craved acceptance in a society obsessed with discrimination. In such a society, a Negro with gold teeth and a weak mind generally had more detractors than friends.
German Johnson was a friend. Leonard had given him a job when nobody else would and tolerated German’s depressions and bad manners.
German suspected that it was because he had always treated Leonard with respect. He didn’t laugh behind Leonard’s back when he spoke. He didn’t belittle him for his garish taste in clothes. Leonard had passions and aspirations that were no different from his own; the fact that Leonard didn’t articulate them well was no reason to demean him. Besides, Leonard had money, and a streak of mean tenacity that insured that he would keep it. Such a friend was valuable, although German refused to accept that as being the core of their friendship.
Four men gathered at a table in the rear of The Royce. White people dropped by The Royce occasionally, but these men had come consistently once a week for the past three weeks. They would huddle at a corner table, talking among themselves in hushed tones. They always ordered full meals, and they always tipped well. This was the first time they had been seated at German Johnson’s table, and he moved quickly in anticipation of a hefty gratuity.
One of the men, balding and in his forties, fixed German’s eyes with a mirthless gaze. He ordered for the entire table in a slightly accented staccato voice.
German had to struggle to prevent himself from recoiling from the steely stare, yet he was still afraid his surprise was apparent. German had seen the man before, and his presence in this place chilled his soul.
“How do you know it was him?” Angie asked. “I mean, it was a long time ago, and you only saw him from a distance, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I saw him maybe fifteen or twenty times. It was him, Angie. It took me back. It was just like I was there again, and I could have reached out and touched him. I could see the pimples on his face. It was him, Angie. I could swear it.”
“So what are you gonna do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he sighed.
He saw the expression on her face. The question she didn’t ask was, Why are you talking about this if you’re not going to do anything about it?
Angelina Ruiz had lived with German for two years. She had given his life focus and direction, everything that had been missing during his years in the military. Most people called her his wife, although he had made no effort to legalize their bond. German didn’t understand his own reluctance. There was no other woman in his life, and they had talked about having children, so he had at least made a subconscious commitment to the permanency of their relationship. He found that he depended on her, needed her wisdom, and looked forward to awaking to her smile. Still, there were mysteries about her — things he didn’t understand. He had begun to believe that those things were more about him than about her. He had grown up in a single parent home, and he had come to realize that it was hard to learn to be a man when he hadn’t spent much time around one.
“What do you think I should do, Angie?” he asked.
“You got to tell somebody, German.”
German Johnson had not been able to get the four men off his mind, especially the bald man with the penetrating eyes. Each time German saw the man, he became more convinced that he had seen him before. And if he was right, the man had a history of evil. His presence here could only mean the worst. The next week they were seated at one of his tables again, and German dutifully served their needs while watching the balding man with a jaded eye.
As the restaurant filled quickly with hungry patrons, waiters scurried from table to table. Raucous laughter erupted from the bar and stole German’s attention. Two uniformed police officers sat at the bar sucking down the free drinks that came with the beat, unless the business owner was stupid.
German perceived an opportunity, but he was hesitant to grasp it.
Hardy McPhail was a veteran officer. He was a big redhead whose stomach hung over his belt. He was no friend to the neighborhood. Cops like him came there to break heads and keep the masses in line.
German decided to try him anyway.
“Officer McPhail, can we talk for a minute?”
McPhail scrutinized him from head to toe and appeared annoyed at having been interrupted.
“Whaddaya want, Johnson?”
“Those people at that table in the corner. I think they’re up to something.”
McPhail responded with a skeptical frown. He leaned back on his stool in order to get an unencumbered view of the table at the far end of the restaurant.
“They look all right to me. What are they doing?”
German swallowed the lump in his throat. There was only so much information that he wanted to share with the likes of Hardy McPhail. He was afraid that his suspicions would sound so preposterous that he would be regarded as a fool.
“I don’t know. They’re acting suspicious. Maybe they’re mobsters. I just thought they should be checked out.”
McPhail’s eyes shifted back and forth between German and the men he had pointed out. Finally, he tapped his partner on the shoulder, slid off the stool, and swaggered to the other end of the restaurant.
German watched from across the room as McPhail spoke to the men. Maybe, just maybe, speaking to a cop might rattle them enough to make one of them slip and reveal something incriminating. The more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he became. The thought was foolish. It was too simplistic to imagine.
To his chagrin, within minutes McPhail was laughing and slapping them on their shoulders. The worst possible outcome seemed to unfold. They looked in his direction as the laughter continued. The balding man laughed as well, but there was no humor in his eyes.