Part 12 (1/2)

”Oh yes,” I said. ”We're calling the cops, and I'm calling Bucky, too. See if he can get somebody to get some mug shots for you to look at. What did the creep look like?”

”He was a white boy,” Baby said. She extended her arm over her head. ”About so high. He was white, but he had them long greasy pigtails like the black kids wear.”

”Dreadlocks,” I said. ”What about his face?”

”That boy was ugly,” Sister said. ”Even a blind woman could see his ugliness.”

”That's right,” Baby agreed. ”Skinny and ugly. And he had a purple-and-white-striped crocheted cap, pulled down low on his ugly face.”

”The gun, Jules,” Edna said. ”I didn't have a permit for that gun.”

I stared at her. ”You said you did have a permit.”

”I lied,” she said. ”If you call the cops, I'll have to tell them about the gun. They could arrest me for carrying a gun without a permit. Just let it go. We'll get the Candler Commandos to handle this.”

”You must have a concussion,” I told her. ”Brain damage. This thug had a knife to begin with; now he has a gun. He's violent, beats up women. Now let me have the phone.”

She took her hand off the phone and crossed her arms over her chest. It was the old Edna Mae Garrity ”I'll take my stand” posture. Not a good sign for anyone taking the opposite posture.

”You can call the FBI, and the GBI, and the CIA, if you want,” she said, narrowing her eyes. ”I'm not filing a report. There are no other witnesses.”

She glared at Baby and Sister. ”n.o.body saw a thing. It's my word against yours. Now I thought you had an errand to run. In the meantime, I'm going to eat my breakfast, and then I've got to get Baby and Sister over to Mrs. Draper's house.”

”Don't you worry about your mama, Callahan,” Baby said. ”We gon' look after her real good. Stay right with her and watch out for that ugly white boy.”

”That's right,” Sister said. She pulled a nickel-plated police whistle out of the pocket of her ap.r.o.n. ”And I'm gonna give a blast on this if anybody even looks at her cross-eyed.”

”No cops,” Edna repeated. ”See? I've got my own bodyguards.”

I locked my eyes on hers. ”I'm calling C. W. Hunsecker this morning. First thing after my errand,” I said. ”Get him to come out here and put in a security system. Alarms, motion sensors, everything.”

”Who's paying for that?” she demanded.

”Remember what you told me last night?” I asked her. ”What I do with my money is none of your business.”

16.

The Atlanta Police Department's Homicide Task Force was created back in 1982, when black children started disappearing all over the city. Eventually there were twenty-one ”official” missing-and-murdered cases. Hundreds of local and federal cops worked the case, eventually causing the creation of a homicide task force and a separate office.

Unlike Atlanta City Hall, where the local politicians had built themselves an airy, elegant munic.i.p.al palace complete with an atrium with $8,500 worth of potted palms, the APD's white brick building downtown on Decatur Street was dark, cramped, and c.r.a.ppy-looking. And the homicide unit's ”new” digs were just as bad: a one-story mustard-colored cinderblock affair on a quiet street off Ponce de Leon in Midtown.

The receptionist at the front desk buzzed me through, but told me that Sergeant Deavers was in a meeting. ”They're all in meetings. All the time,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I sat at Bucky's desk in the communal squad room, looked around to make sure n.o.body was watching. n.o.body was. There was plenty of crime to go around. I leafed through a couple of case folders on Bucky's desk. Boring stuff. Clerk shot dead during a robbery at a liquor store on Martin Luther King Drive, eighteen-year-old mother of two shot to death by her boyfriend in an argument over who got the drumsticks out of a bucket of fried chicken.

There was a stack of pink telephone message slips on the desktop. Which reminded me. I picked up Bucky's phone and dialed 9, then the number for Hunsecker & a.s.sociates Security.

C. W. Hunsecker was my old cop buddy, a captain in the homicide unit before the shooting. He'd taken disability leave from the APD two years ago, after my carelessness got him shot, almost killed, paralyzed. He runs a security business these days, and helps me out with an occasional case. We'd been in some tight places together, and I knew that once I told him about what had been going on in our neighborhood, he'd give me a decent price on a security system.

C. W. answered the phone himself. We exchanged pleasantries: I asked him about his wife, Linda Nickells, a good friend of mine, and their preschool-aged son, Wash; he asked me about Mac and the family. Then I told him about the boogeymen who'd come sniffing 'round our door.

”Man,” he said softly. ”I hate to hear about somebody doing your mama that way. Sounds to me like the cops need to get over there and knock some heads together.”

”I hate it, too,” I said. ”It's funny. With all her organization of this community-action patrol, you'd think Edna would want the police involved. But she doesn't. She won't even file a report. She's humiliated. I'm gonna talk to Bucky about it, see if he'll talk to the captain over at Zone Five, but in the meantime, I think we're going to have to get a security system for the house.”

”Best money you could spend,” C.W. said heartily. ”Haven't I been telling you that neighborhood ain't safe?”

”I hate the idea of living behind burglar alarms and camera monitors,” I told him. ”How much is this thing gonna cost?”

”Won't be that bad,” C.W. said. I heard him tapping on the keys of a calculator. ”I'll give you the equipment at my cost, install it myself. You'll want silent and audible alarms, contact switches and motion detectors on the doors and windows...” He droned on, and I could hear the numbers adding up. I doodled on the margins of Bucky's desk blotter. Dollar signs, moneybags, barred windows. All very Freudian.

”Okay,” C.W. said finally. ”I think we can get you wired for the basics for about a thousand dollars. But I'd suggest one more thing. A closed-circuit video cam on the front door, with a monitor inside the house, probably the kitchen, so you can see who's at the door before they see you. That's another five hundred. I got most of the stuff in stock. I could come out there tomorrow morning. That suit you?”

”On your day off?” I asked, wincing. ”Linda will wring my neck. She says you're never home as it is. No, better just get me your regular installer.”

”You know what my installation guys get paid?” C.W. said, hooting. ”You'll wish you'd gone to trade school instead of college. Naw. I'll do it. Linda can help. She's getting really good at wiring. You and Edna can run herd on Wash.”

”You drive a hard bargain,” I said. ”See you Sat.u.r.day.”

”See who on Sat.u.r.day?” Bucky said, looming over me.

I hadn't seen him come out of his meeting. He had a stack of files tucked under his arm and was wearing gla.s.ses I'd never seen before.

I got up hastily. ”C. W. Hunsecker. He's gonna come out and install a security system on the house.”

Bucky took off the gla.s.ses and tucked them in his s.h.i.+rt pocket. He nodded his approval. ”Good. Peepers are nothing to mess with.”

”It's more than a Peeping Tom now,” I said. ”Edna was mugged in the front yard last night. At knifepoint. Guy beat her up bad and s.n.a.t.c.hed her purse. Baby and Sister scared him off or he could have killed her.”

Bucky pulled up a chair from the vacant desk next to his. ”You don't just need a security system, Garrity, you need a new address. Is Edna all right?”

I shrugged. ”She says she's fine. But she's bruised and battered and mad as h.e.l.l. I think this whole thing has left her feeling really vulnerable for the first time in her life.” I hesitated. ”Her gun was in her purse. Along with her bingo winnings.”

”You called it in, right?”

”She wouldn't let me. Turns out she didn't have a carry permit. When I left the house this morning, Baby and Sister were playing bodyguard, and she was trying to act like the whole thing was a joke, but we both know it's not. I got a description of the guy. Sounds like a street kid.”

Bucky was writing as I talked. ”I'll talk to Jeff Kaczynski over at Zone Five. They've got a nice gallery of mug shots of the locals. He can take it by the house, have a chat with your mother, try to talk her into doing the right thing. A crazy with a gun is nothing to mess with. It was a thirty-eight, right?”

”Right. Good luck to Kaczynski,” I said ruefully. ”You know my mother. She's no pushover, not after she makes up her mind.”

”Edna will like Kaczynski,” Bucky said. ”He's got that Southern accent, calls people 'ma'am' and 'sir,' takes off his hat when he comes in the house. Not a barbarian, like the rest of us.”

”I feel better already,” I said. ”Now what about that business card you promised me? For Wuvvy's lawyer friend? And you said I could look through Wuvvy's stuff.”