The Devil's Own Rag Doll Read Free

anchored to the mangled palm. A lobster claw. With the claw I fingered over Thrumm’s war production ID badge from the Packard aircraft engine place, the money clip filled out with small bills, and his keys. I started to pull open the little drawer in the table. I figured it to be some kind of dope, but since we had no intention of taking Thrumm in, I wasn’t about to go through the trouble of actually finding anything.
    â€œTwo doors up? What’s the woman’s name?” Bobby asked.
    â€œListen, I ain’t, I ain’t exactly sure about that.” Thrumm squirmed, and strained his attention toward me. “You know how that goes. So thick with extra women around here now with the war and all, they lookin’ all the same to me.”
    â€œWell, let’s put it this way. Some advice. If we have to come back here, you’ll want to be somewhere else.” Bobby stood up and shook down his clothes to a proper hang. He looked down at Thrumm but let his eyes go out of focus, as if considering something carefully. Then he gestured to me. “Let’s get out of here. If we hurry, we can finish all this before lunch.”
    I let my lips curl a bit. I left the drawer as it was, picked up the telephone, and ripped the cord from the base. Then I turned and followed Bobby right out the door. As I trudged to the car through the rising heat of the cloudless day, I thought about what Thrumm had said.
    Bobby said, “We’ll take it around the block and up the alley and see if Toby Thrumm’s a rabbit like I think he is.”
    Nobody else ever drove if Bobby Swope was around. He fished the keys from his pocket and we roared off, pretending to be hot for Hastings Street. But Bobby drove around to the next street, parked, and cooled for a few minutes, time enough for Thrumm to throw a few things in a bag. The alley was quiet enough. I guessed that there were plenty of white folks off playing tennis somewhere, getting rich by renting out the broken-down houses to all the colored families. They were jammed in tight in the Bottom and in Paradise Valley, jammed in, as I had read somewhere, as tight as Calcutta. And more Negroes were coming all the time, hitching up from the Deep South or riding over from Chicago or Cleveland to grab a job at one of the big auto plants or making airplanes at Willow Run.
    We walked up the alley and waited out of sight in front of the garage door. In a minute Thrumm hot-stepped it toward the garage and began to swing open the big door from the inside. I ducked in and grabbed Thrumm by his spotty shirt and lifted him onto the hood of the old Fargo truck. Thrumm’s head and backbone bounced all the way up to the windshield as I dragged him up over the front of the vehicle, and then again on the way down to the dirt floor of the garage. Bobby quietly pulled the garage door closed, cutting down the light to what could squeeze through the murky windows.
    Thrumm’s eyes got bigger when I pulled out my revolver. I held the barrel of the pistol hard to the base of Thrumm’s neck and watched a snaky vein grow fat with stoppered blood. Bobby pulled a little knife from his pocket and absently cleaned his nails for a moment, watching Thrumm with lazy eyes. Then he stooped and eased the blade slowly into the sidewall of one of the truck’s precious wartime tires, twisting to let the air hiss out more quickly. Thrumm gasped and jerked but made no attempt to escape. I watched his eyes jumping and judged that I was about to hear another lie, so I twice brought the butt of the revolver down onto the bridge of his nose.
    Thrumm yelped and coughed, then held up a pale, dry palm in submission.
    Bobby leaned close. “Lie to me again, lover boy.”
    â€œShoo!” sputtered Thrumm through running blood. “I won’t tell no more stories.” Thrumm blinked to get the water from his eyes and moved to get up, but I pushed the nose of the gun into his neck