Part 13 (1/2)

”Oh. Well, his friends called him Wild Bill.”

”Then why didn't you say Wild Bill?”

”Sorry. I'm saying it now. You were a friend of Wild Bill's?”

”Bill's dead.”

”I know.”

”He dropped dead, on the street. Just fast as that. Stroke, they said. On his way here, I reckon. Said he just fell down dead. Just like that. It just go to show you, when you think you on top of the world, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d'll lay in wait for you, throw a big ole brick down from the roof on you. Fore you know it, you dead.”

”You mean someone threw a brick at Wild Bill?”

”No, girl. I mean G.o.d. I'm just usin' ah example.”

”Listen, Mr. Cooper, did you know Wild Bill long?”

In answer, he let go of the newspaper and held up his two hands, at a great distance from one another, presumably to mean the friends.h.i.+p had stretched over many a year.

”Did Wild Bill ever mention a Rhode Island Red?” I asked.

”A red what? ... Oh, yeah. He mention it.”

”Can you tell me what he said?”

Coop leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

I repeated my request, but he remained as he was, eyes closed.

At length, it occurred to me what he was doing. Waiting for me to offer to buy him a drink. I got up and went to the bar. The bartender didn't wait for me to order. He placed a bottle of Amstel Light on the bar. Next to it he placed a gla.s.s and filled it halfway up with rotgut wine from a gallon jug. I paid for the drinks and brought them back to Coop.

He sipped daintily at the wine but finished the beer in practically a single gulp. Then he smiled and gestured for me to come closer. I moved right next to him.

He put his mouth against my ear and screeched: ”Burrk! burrk! burrk!”-an earsplitting rendition of barnyard fowl. Then he added, ”Girl, you think Bill ain't had nothing better to talk about than chicken.”

I controlled my anger and wiped at my ear.

Then I pulled out the index cards and spread them over the table.

”Did he ever talk to you about these men?” I asked.

He drank more wine, surveying the names, shaking his head.

I stood up and started to leave.

”You know,” he said slyly, ”you look like Bill about as much as old Eleanor Roosevelt do. Least the police and the white man come around here ain't tried to lie and say they related to Wild Bill. Least they don't try to play me for a fool.”

I sat down quickly. ”I didn't mean to play you for a fool, either,” I said. ”The police have talked to you-a black cop? Big and mean looking. And a white man who wasn't with the police?”

”That's right.”

”When? When did this white man ask you about Bill?”

”About a week before Bill die, maybe less.”

”Do you know what his name is? Did he give you his address or his phone number?”

”He give me some of that good brandy is what he give me. And tell me there's a hundred dollars in it if I can tell him where to find Wild Bill.”

”And did you?”

”No. Couple of weeks before Bill die ain't n.o.body much see him. He was acting mighty peculiar. Might as well have been a shadow for all the time he spent around here. And then, next thing we hear, he dead.”

”What did he look like?”

”You don't know what Bill even look like?”

”Not him, not Wild Bill,” I said, almost out of patience. ”The white man!” I signaled the bartender to fix Coop up again.

So Henry Valokus-and, it sounded like, Leman Sweet-had been looking for Wild Bill a week or less before he died. Valokus and Wild Bill had more than Providence in common. That was for sure. But who really had been hunting who? And which one knew the secret of Rhode Island Red?

I headed north and west, toward St. Anne's Church.

It was easy to find: half the block had been razed. The gray stone church, its steeple rising high and alone, stood sad watch over the street, brooding and yet somehow hopeful. Next to the church was the decrepit building, now all boarded up, that had once been the school.

The youngish, flaxen-haired Finn who turned out to be the current priest at St. Anne's couldn't have been nicer to me. But he could be of very little help.

He took the index cards from my hand and went through them slowly, asking me at one point if I was planning to write a parish history.

”Why do you ask that?” I replied.

”Well, some of these names sound vaguely familiar. But it's probably from the records I've been going over lately. Probably their children went to school here, when we had a school, that is. But this generation is all gone.”

The father had no recollection of ever seeing a man who fitted Wild Bill's description either. And no, there had been no gentleman, about so high, with a European accent, inquiring about old paris.h.i.+oners lately.

Everybody in this scenario was mighty interested in s.h.i.+ps, in the docks of New York, way back when. That strange roster of longsh.o.r.emen intersected with a talented jazz trumpeter who ended up a desperate drunk, a mobster who had informed on and then become a laughing stock to his confederates and a crooked undercover policeman. But I had no idea why.

I'd been sitting on the church steps for a good twenty minutes, weary and craving a cigarette, when I noticed the white van across the street. At the wheel was the woman who'd held the gun to my head.

I stood suddenly and beat it back into the doorway of the church. But that prompted no movement from the van. They continued to sit there.

How long, I wondered, had they been following me. All day? And if they were going to try to s.n.a.t.c.h me again, what were they waiting for? Clearly, if they'd wanted to kill me they could have done so at any time during the last twenty minutes. But they'd chosen to do nothing. Why?

We had a real stand-off going. I wasn't budging from the doorway. And they weren't budging from the curb.

And then, without ceremony, they left. Just drove away.