The Dying Crapshooter’s Blues

From down the alley, a voice cut through the falling night like a honed blade.
 Sharp whispers were not such an odd thing in the shadows off Decatur Street, nor was it so strange when two shapes abruptly animated and split apart, like stage actors who had just heard the call to places. Swept by the swirling wind, they kept their faces hidden and disappeared in opposite directions. Then it got quiet again.
 
Central Avenue was on fire. The gambling and sporting houses along the street that stretched south from the rail yards pulsed with light and motion this December night, as men who were low on funds tried to win some in advance of the holiday, and those who had received something extra in their pay envelopes went looking for a woman and a drink to spend it on. Coarse laughter rumbled over the sounds of tinny brass and clunking pianos from the horns of Victrolas. Though shades were drawn, there was no doubt what kind of commotion was going on inside the houses. It looked to all the world like a typical Saturday night on Atlanta’s scarlet boulevard.
 And yet a certain unease was hanging about, a guest in a bad humor. The veteran rounders sniffed the air like dogs catching a bad scent. Sports who knew better snarled at each other over card tables, and fisticuffs broke out left and right. In the upstairs rooms, the sporting girls bickered back and forth, hissing with venom. The whiskey in the speaks tasted a little raw even for moonshine, and too many of the gamblers couldn’t get a decent hand or make the dice roll their way to save their souls.
 Still, the action on the avenue never missed a beat on this, one of the last Saturday nights before Christmas. Those who believed the rumors that business was going to be shut down after the first of the year bet harder at the tables or ponied up for lookers who had all their teeth and spoke in complete sentences instead of one of the homely and sullen country girls who did it for a half-dollar and never smiled. No one with sense could deny there was something in the air.
 
On this same night, less than two miles distant, the Payne mansion was splendid in its annual yuletide glory. Every window glowed with festive light, and the ten-foot blue spruce trees on either side of the front door were festooned with little globes inside which cheery candles flickered. Even the tall wrought-iron fence that surrounded the corner property was draped in ropes of holly. Indeed, the massive two-story brick in Greek-revival style with solid columns at its portico had been decorated with such élan that the society scribblers would fairly swoon as they filled their columns with the kind of fawning attention to detail that would make their readers think they had been there. The charity Christmas party was such an event that every year brought rumors that certain unexplained deaths among the affluent class had actually been suicides over being left off the guest list.
 The night had brought a bustle of excitement that rippled in and out the heavy front doors with the guests, dressed to the nines, the women aglitter in gems and swathed in gowns from the Davison and Neiman stores, and the gentlemen stiff in tuxedos of inky black. Music from an eight-piece orchestra was barely audible over all the gay chatter and clinking of glasses.
 Outside, a line of automobiles stretched along the Euclid Avenue and Elizabeth Street curbs in four directions. There was not a single Model T in their number; indeed, it appeared that a parade of luxury models had come to a stop: Duesenbergs, Wintons, Chryslers, Whippets, Cords, and a dozen other marques, their nameplates basking in the glow of the streetlights. Chauffeurs were de rigueur, of course, and so Negroes in fancy livery stood around stamping their feet and clapping their gloved hands against the cold. Every few minutes, a pint bottle of homemade whiskey would appear, make a round, and go back into hiding.
 Local wags would note that half the automobiles had either been parked there purely for show or had owners who were impossibly lazy, as their homes were within a few minutes’ stroll.
 Inside the house it was such a hectic event, with so much frantic activity, that no one paid attention when one of the colored maids passed a slip of paper to another, who gave it a quick read and with an absent smile folded it into her apron pocket.
 The second maid, dark skinned and sharp featured, made her way to the door that led from the bustling, overheated kitchen to the basement stairs. Keeping her face intent, as if on a pressing errand, she stepped through the door and closed it behind her. She lingered in the basement only a minute and was not missed.
 The party bubbled merrily on until the stroke of midnight, when tradition demanded a toast. This year, the glasses were raised to the great city of Atlanta, to those upstanding citizens who had made such generous donations to the Christmas fund, surpassing the previous year’s, and finally to new mayor John Sampson for his exemplary efforts in maintaining their safety and protecting their interests. With that, the couples in their tuxedos and furs began to take their leave. The foyer rang with hearty farewells as the guests went out the door and down the walk to their waiting automobiles.
 It was when the last of the wraps were being collected from the second floor that Mrs. Charles Payne stepped into the master bedroom and noticed a zebrawood jewelry box that had no business being out sitting atop the dressing table. Lifting the lid, she found it empty, cleaned of a half-dozen pieces of her best jewelry. She let out a gasp and called faintly, then louder, and one of the maids ran down the hall and down the stairs to fetch her husband.