Read The Ragtime Fool for Free Online Page B

into his young friend’s face. “You okay?”
    “Yeah. Sure.” Cal shook his head back and forth. “Just writing a story. When I’m writing, I go off into another world.”
    Brun chuckled, then his face turned serious. “Well, actually, that’s why I’m here. I got something bothering me, and I thought what with you being a writer, you could help me figure it out.”
    Cal turned a hard eye on the old man. “You’re for real?”
    “I ain’t whistlin’ Dixie. Come on, let’s go down by Bayless’. I’ll stand you to lunch.”
    ***
    They ordered tuna sandwiches, coffee for Brun, a chocolate shake for Cal. The writer listened carefully to Brun’s account of finding Roscoe on the basement floor, then said, “I’m really sorry to hear that. Roscoe was a good guy.”
    “The best. Which is why it bothers me so much to think maybe it wasn’t any accident. Now, suppose you’re writing a story, and the detective finds a guy—”
    Cal’s eyes narrowed. “I write science fiction, Brun, not murder mysteries.”
    “Same difference. People die, people get killed. Say one of your Martians finds a guy from the moon laying at the foot of the stairs, dead, with a bottle of Jack Daniels in pieces all around him, and his hand on the neck of the bottle. Is that Martian just gonna decide it was an accident, and that’s that?”
    Cal considered saying that moon people don’t drink, but decided not to crack wise. “Well, maybe it does sound a little questionable.”
    “A little? If you went down a flight of stairs, ass over teakettle, would you be grabbing for the neck of a broken whiskey bottle after you hit?”
    “No, of course not. But maybe that’s just the way he fell. His arm could have flown out in front of him, and happened to land on the bottle neck. And if he was badly hurt, he wouldn’t have been thinking awfully straight. Who knows what he might’ve thought that bottle neck was?”
    The waitress set their food in front of them. Brun took a savage bite from his sandwich, then talked from the corner of his mouth. “Listen, Cal. What if I say the reason I went over there last night was because Roscoe came by the barber shop in the afternoon, said he had something he needed to talk to me about, and I should be sure and stop by his house later? Would you write that in a story, and then have the guy take an accidental ride down a staircase to a cement floor?”
    Cal corrugated his forehead. “I guess not.”
    “Okay, then. Now, think about those Beatnik bums for a minute. They always got their eye out for dough they don’t have to work for. Just last week, Roscoe was telling me how a couple of them hit him up for a handout on the street, and when he wouldn’t come across, they got nasty with him. Told him old people’re useless, they’re holding society back and all that, they oughta just lay down and die. I tried telling that to the cops, but they weren’t about to listen. Just gave me a bunch of crap about how I should shut up and wait for the autopsy and the tests.”
    Cal paused, then decided to say it. “Brun, if I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve got to say that’s not unreasonable.”
    The barber slammed down his coffee cup. Brown liquid sloshed into the saucer. “Come on, Cal, gimme a break. You think I oughta just up and believe whatever the cops try and get past me? Out where I grew up, when a colored guy got killed, ‘less the bozo who did it was standing right there in plain sight, the cops called it an accident. Less work for them. Nowadays, maybe they need to be a little more careful, but I’m betting they still cheat when they can. Who’s gonna complain about some old colored guy, got pushed down a flight of stairs?”
    Cal swallowed a mouthful of milk shake. “Outside of you.”
    Brun nodded. “That’s it. Okay, then, Writer. What would that Martian do after he found the moon man?” Brun pointed at Cal’s remaining half-sandwich. “There ain’t no free lunches.”
    Cal