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Slowly, the prisoner managed to come once more to rest on his haunches.
Gene knelt next to him and said in a near whisper, “Now who told you to get your ass off that floor?”
He battered the prisoner on the back of the head with the club, sending him down once more, now bleeding from his scalp.
Gene stood up and said, “Jesus, you ain’t too smart, and here you wanna be equal to the white man. Now get up. Get up.” He jabbed the prisoner fiercely in the ribs with the club. “I ain’t tellin’ you again, boy. Up!”
The prisoner, inch by tremulous inch, levered himself back onto his knees.
Gene knelt down again. “Good, good, boy.” He grinned at his partner. “Who says you can’t teach critters new tricks, LeRoy, huh?” He turned back to the bleeding, woozy prisoner and eyed the band on the man’s finger. “Hey, now, you got yourself a woman?”
Gene walloped the suspect with the club on the side of his head. “I asked you a question. You ain’t got no choice ’cept to answer me.”
“Y-yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes... sir.”
He leaned in closer. “Good, good. Bet she’s pretty. She pretty, boy?”
The prisoner nodded, which got him another clubbing to the head.
“You speak, boy. You don’t never nod at no white man. It’s disrespectful.”
His eyes closed, the man said, “She real pretty, sir.”
“Good, good. Now, you got you kids?”
“Y-yes sir.”
“Fine, that’s fine. How many babies you got?”
“Three, sir.”
“Three!” Gene looked at his partner. “Boy say he got him three colored babies.” He turned back to the prisoner. “Okay, now after they fry your ass over in Richmond I’m gonna go see your pretty wife and your babies with some friends of mine. Now let me tell you what we gonna do to all them after we finish havin’ some fun with her.”
He leaned close and whispered in the prisoner’s ear.
The man roared in rage, knocking Gene down with his maddened, gyrating bulk.
The deputy slid across the floor, grinning. He took off his hat, swiped back his hair, and gripped his billy club extra firm. He rose and headed back to the only suspect in the room, who was now sprawled helplessly on the floor.
Gene said triumphantly, “Resistin’ arrest plain as day. You seen it, LeRoy.”
And he raised the club.
CHAPTER 2
JOHN ROBERT LEE, WHO WENT by Jack to all but his mother, finished pumping Esso gas into his ancient, four-door Fiat pillarless saloon car. The front doors opened regularly, back to front, but the rear doors opened front to back. It had a long hood terminating in a fancy grille with silver cased headlights that sprouted from the front slim fenders like incandescent daisies. Its four-cylinder engine could hit fifty-three miles an hour with a decent tailwind. He paid over a crisp single and two dull quarters to the attendant, who was studying the funny-looking car with interest.
“What the hell is that thang?” he asked.
“It’s a Fiat,” answered Jack.
“A fee-ought?”
“It’s Italian made.”
