Free Darktown by Thomas Mullen Page B

in.
    Rake had been hearing a lot of the “Grits” line. Officers in his presence made a point of discussing what they’d eaten for breakfast, as if this was the funniest damn thing they’d ever heard.
    â€œThey do serve grits here all night, I believe,” Helton said. He had short blond hair turning gray and he looked like the sort of fellow who might have once had a lot of promise, longer ago than he cared to admit. Perhaps he’d been skilled at throwing a ball of some kind and had married a cheerleader who was still distraught over the fact that they couldn’t afford to live in a better neighborhood.
    â€œFlavored with niggers’ tears,” Peterson added. With their similar manners and surnames, Rake saw Helton and Peterson as basically the same person, divided in half by some horrible accident. Though he changed his mind about which was which. Peterson had darker hair and a rounder face, but otherwise their differences appeared minor.
    They dragged another table over to join Rake and Dunlow for “lunch,” which Rake still thought was a strange thing to call a meal you ate at midnight when you worked the night shift.
    â€œThey’re saying Henry Wallace is gonna try to give a speech here next month,” Peterson said.
    â€œI don’t care to discuss politics at work,” Dunlow said. Dunlow still had fading bruises on his face from his tussle with Triple James. “Nor anywhere else.” He belched.
    â€œWell, our esteemed former VP has made it his own personal policy not to give any talks before segregated audiences,” Helton explained. “So if he gives a talk here, that means some of us will have the honor of arresting him.”
    Wallace had served as vice president under FDR, one of the most hated men in the South, for one term before being unceremoniously dumped in favor of Truman in ’44. Now he was running, against theman who had supplanted him, as a third-party agitator. Wallace had gone hard left during his time in the political wilderness, attracting all manner of Communists and socialists, railing against segregation and doing what he could to cause trouble in the South.
    â€œThey won’t let us arrest the ex-VP, you idiot,” Peterson said. “We’d just have to shut it down.”
    â€œWhere’s it happening?” Rake asked.
    â€œHaven’t said yet. They’ll likely announce it as last-minute as possible.”
    After they’d eaten and the waitress had cleared all but their coffee mugs, Helton asked, “Y’all hear the latest on Nigger Bayle? He’s gonna be reinstated.”
    â€œBullshit,” Dunlow said.
    â€œIt’s bull but it’s happening.”
    Dunlow was the one who’d reported Negro Officer Bayle for consumption of alcohol. He claimed that he’d seen Bayle among a trio of Negroes drinking from flasks outside a bar. Rake had learned over the ensuing days that things hadn’t quite happened that way—it was actually one of Dunlow’s Negro informants who’d seen it, supposedly.
    â€œNext time you want to get a nigra suspended,” Helton said to Dunlow, “say you saw him doing something more lurid.”
    â€œBad enough we got coloreds wearing the same badge as us,” Dunlow said, “but some of them are drinkers, too.”
    Though Rake was officially Dunlow’s partner, he had worked a handful of shifts with Peterson and Helton in his first few weeks, as the Department liked the rookies to learn from as many veterans as possible. Rake swiftly determined that he had little to learn from them. Like Dunlow, they were on the wrong side of forty for beat cops, and they were far more interested in getting cuts from gamblers and moonshiners than in enforcing the law.
    The first time Rake had met Peterson, the older cop had extended his left hand, saying, “I have a friend in Black Rock.” Rake had extended his right, puzzling over