Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (43) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
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By Roger Owens

Monday,
July 17, 1922,
9:00 AM

The first one to show up was the Sheriff. Red and the Judge had taken breakfast at the Flamingo Café, finishing up by about 8:15 AM, and strolled to Stikelether’s office at the back of a nice building on the south side of 20^th Street. When they turned onto the sidewalk along the east side of the building a tiny park on their left shaded them from the raging sun, the juvenile oaks dense enough to cut the heat and glare to a pleasant dappled coolness.
    They entered the corner office, the Judge unlocked and raised the windows, and Red noticed he had good screens. Damned flies and mosquitos would drive a man mad, he thought, if’n he wasn’t used to ’em. Red had never slept in a house that had screens, much less worked at an office that did. Must be nice, he thought.
    They sat on either side of the Judge’s desk, and Grey sat in a plush leather chair with his back to the south window, which Red saw would play sunlight across his work area most of the day. Red sat uneasily on a swivel rolling chair, a contraption he had never used in his life. He shifted nervously, feeling like the damned thing was going to slip out from under him any second. Its wheels made a rumble on the hardwood floor that made Red think of alligators bellowing in mating season.

Stikelether offered Red a flask

    Stikelether offered him a flask, and while Red usually didn’t drink early in the day, he took a quick swallow, then another, and handed it back. Red tried and failed to roll a cigarette, until Stikelether took pity, and, grinning that damned grin of his, reached in the same drawer the flask had appeared from and shook a store-bought halfway out of the pack at him. He took one too, and, sharing a lucifer, they lit up.
    The Judge pulled out a copy of the “Reports of the Proceedings” publication, which reviewed the Federal Court decisions for the year past. Red had brought the paper from the Flamingo the day before and was reading the baseball scores from the Sunday games. It looked for all the world like the New York Giants could again be the champs of the World Series. In the National League they were ahead of the Reds by four games; the only real contenders in the American League were the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns, with the Tigers trailing a distant third. The Giants had beat the Yankees last year, and there was no reason to think they wouldn’t beat them again. Red and the Judge didn’t have long to wait.
    This time the Sheriff knocked politely before entering, and although he didn’t quite take his wide-brimmed Stetson off, Red could see he considered it. He nodded politely to Stikelether. “Mornin’, Judge.”
    Grey just nodded back. Sheriff Merritt then turned uncomfortably to Red and gave a tiny nod. “Dedge.” He took another rolling chair and seemed no more secure in this circus-ride of a seat than the eighteen-year-old sitting next to him.
    Red looked over and saw the Judge was grinning that grin, and a jolt went through him. It could only mean one thing-the old pirate had the Sheriff by the balls! He wasn’t sure exactly how, and he really didn’t give a damn. It was about time something went their way, he thought. He hadn’t forgotten his brother, ruined for life for most honest work, and if Stikelether could make these bastards pay, he was ready to make it happen. He sat back without thinking, and the rocker leaned and started rolling across the floor. He stamped his feet down to stop it, and it looked like the Sheriff was going to jump out of his skin at the sound.
    Stikelether just grinned. “Something we can help you with, Sheriff Merritt?”
    Merritt gradually turned his wide stare back to the Judge. It was as if he thought Dedge would attack him and was afraid to take his eyes off him. It was a wonder to Red Dedge that this man could be afraid of him. Merritt was near as tall as Red himself and probably outweighed him by a hundred pounds. He chewed tobacco and spit it on floors, carried two pistols turned backwards in the holsters, and a pair of heavy handcuffs hung from his belt.

Red didn’t know what Merritt had been told

    Red didn’t know that Merritt had been told the story by the Frankenfield women, of this—this boy—cold-bloodedly murdering Kenny Frankenfield with double-ought buckshot, blowing his ribs out no different from a wild hog. Not that Merritt could do a damn thing about it without proof, and there wouldn’t be any of that, he was sure. Although Merritt knew stinking well Kenny was guilty as hot sin, it made his skin crawl just being in the room with his killer; Kenny Frankenfield had been the baddest son of a bitch he’d ever known, until now.
    Red was tired of being afraid and knew to press an advantage when he had one. He smiled his own thin smile, and even Greyson Stikelether took notice of that rare event. It was ghastly. Red Dedge’s face looked like a skull, a death’s head, and it took both the older men by surprise. It was as if the sun had dimmed for a moment, like a cloud had gone over. There were no clouds. Neither officer of the Court doubted in that heartbeat that this boy was ready to kill again. Maybe even right now. Sheriff J. R. Merritt stumbled over his words for a second, but finally spit it out.
    “I…I guess we need to settle this suit.”
    Stikelether nodded graciously. “And what do you suggest in the way of settlement? The suit asks for one thousand dollars.”
    The Sheriff gulped loudly. “I ain’t got a thousand dollars…”
    Stikelether slapped the desk and spun around in his own padded chair, leaned back and looked out the window. “Come, come, Sheriff Merritt! I’m disappointed in you! You think so little of my acumen? What about those shares in the Sebastian Ranch Company you bought off Frank Frankenfield for a dime on the dollar? You know, the ones the Barnetts used to pay John Ashley for a year of their rum? Those securities are numbered, you know.”
    The Sheriff chewed this for a few moments, his mustache twisting here and there. His expression went from shock through consideration, and when the choice came down to bowing down easy or bowing and getting pissed, he chose the latter. “Fine. Take ’em, they ain’t worth shit no-how.”
    Stikelether spun back and to the astonishment of both Dedge and Merritt, pulled a sheet of paper from his top drawer already covered with writing and fancy seals, turned it carefully around, and slid it across his desk to the Sheriff. “Sign here.”
    J.R. Merritt gritted his teeth, spit chaw juice through them onto the floor, glared at the Judge, then at Dedge.
    Greyson slid a fountain pen across the desk.

Merritt stomped out of the office

    Merritt chewed his mustache some more, glared at both of them again, grabbed the pen and signed. He swung in the chair, nearly lost his footing with his silly assed slick-bottomed cowboy boots—the man drove a car for God’s sake, Red thought—and stomped out of the office. He didn’t even close the door.
    Stikelether pointed his chin at the door. “Mind shutting that? Letting the flies out. Trying to conserve meat…”
    It was an old joke, and Red didn’t laugh. He stood and pulled the door to, and almost flopped back into the chair but then eyed it with suspicion and sat carefully.
    The grizzled old pirate was grinning again. “Don’t pout, Mr. Dedge! You just made one thousand dollars, minus my small honorarium of course. The Sheriff was lying; the stock may be worth more in fact. How does it feel?”
    Red Dedge thought his eyebrows might lift from his head, his eyes were so wide. “That, that money comes to me?”
    Stikelether was laughing outright now. “Of course it does, boy, you’re the one who sued him, aren’t you?”
    The boy just shook his head, looking at the floor. “I never had a thousand dollars in my life.”
    The Judge grew pensive. “We’re not done yet, son, and I will see you properly compensated for your losses. Partly because it is the right thing to do, but also because I hate these sons of bitches at least as much as you do, and maybe more. We’ve only begun to hurt them, and I intend to keep on hurting them, as much and as long as I can.”
    Red raised staring eyes to the man and said, “I guess you didn’t figger it’d be easy either, did you sir?”
    Greyson Stikelether shook his head as well, spun to look out the window again and answered Red Dedge with a whisper, a ghost of his own words. “No. No sir, I did not.”

“He always was a cheap son of a bitch”

    As the simmering sun swung to the top of the sky, one after another of the men named in the suits came calling. Frances P. Fleming Jr. was happy to pay one thousand dollars to get his wayward daughter’s name out of the gossip columns. “Z” Zeuchs coughed up two hundred for defamation. “He always was a cheap son of a bitch,” the Judge said when he left.
    William Kimball grudgingly paid five hundred dollars, glaring hatred at Red every minute. “My boy still cain’t eat nothin’ but God-damned soup.”
    Red bowed right up in his face. “Yeah, well my brother done got his God-damned leg blown off, so I reckon we’re more ’n even,” and he glared hatred right back.
    Teddy Canova, already half-bagged and reeking, meekly handed over five hundred and fifty-five shares in the Indian River Ranch Company worth two dollars each, also gotten from the Ashleys and provably so.
    The only holdout was Roy Couch. Stikelether told Red to just forget him, they didn’t have much on him anyway. “Roy’s a certified lunatic in any case; he’s convinced he’s going to get that inlet at Sebastian permanently cut to the ocean and make a bundle on it. So far all he’s made is enemies. Let’s just get over to Jimmie’s before Lilly cooks up all that catfish.”
    Red’s head spun with the staggering sum he’d been awarded. Three thousand, six hundred and ten dollars by his figuring, and he knew his ciphers just fine.
    The Judge led Dedge along the north side of the buildings on 20^th Street, staying in the shade. They left cut across 20^th at 14^th Avenue, then left again on 21^st Street. The market was just to their right and a bit north, but of a Monday there were few vendors with their stalls open. Most would fold up by 2 PM to get out of the heat. Across the square the noon bell rang at the train station, and was answered by the tiny silver bell on the screen door as they walked into the Flamingo Café.
    Most local workers were just off for lunch when the noon bell rang, so they had beaten the crowd. Lilly was already heading to what Red had begun thinking of as “their” table by the window, with two tall glasses and a pitcher of ice tea. Jimmie’s place faced north so the noon shadow from the southering sun shaded the sidewalk out front. The sheer curtains drawn to either side of the open glass were sucked by the southeast breeze against the screens, ceiling fans stirred the humid air, and the interior was blessedly cool. On the Aeriola, Bert Williams belted out a finger-snapping version of “Play That Barber-Shop Chord.”

down in the great big rathskeller, where a swell colored fella,by the name of Bill Jefferson Lord, played the piano while he’d sing a song, he just sang and played the whole night long…

    Lilly raised an eyebrow at the Judge, who grinned and nodded. He didn’t even need to say “the regular” anymore. She turned her languid gaze on Red, who could never seem to help blushing like a schoolgirl every time she did. “How ’bout j’ou, chico? El hombre rico ahora, el Guapo eh? Demasiado malo para ti, ademas el hombre clavo…”
    Red’s very ears began to burn.
    “No se si agradecerte o estar enojado.” She’d said he was the rich man now, Mr. Handsome, but it was too bad he was also going bald. That was true enough to be a real sore spot for Red Dedge; his hair was indeed thinning, and he was just eighteen years old.
    He answered that he didn’t know whether to thank her or to be angry. Lilly put her fist over her mouth and stifled a laugh.

Red had been brought up better than that

    “Por favor no estes enojado conmigo, tengo mucho miedo.” She was plainly mocking him now, and had he had it in him to become openly angry with a respectable white, well, more or less white, woman many years his elder, in public, he might have. But he did not. He’d been brought up better than that.
    But if there was one thing that chapped the young man’s ass it was someone making fun of him, and any man who tried had better look out. “Oh please don’t be mad, I’m so afraid,” he translated her words in his mind. He was utterly embarrassed, but all he could honorably do was to smile up at her and let it go. So he smiled up at her.

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens