She stopped at a street lamp and felt in her coat pockets. Felt in the trouser pockets. Took off her hat and pulled out a matchbox. Nick crept closer along the sidewalk. A donkey neighed and a man walked past leading the animal with only a scarf tied around the animal’s neck. She struck a match. Held it in front of her face. Stared until it burned down to her fingers and she dropped it. Then she walked farther along the street. The sidewalks lined with shacklike cribs. Short and ramshackle rooms stacked against one another like something from a child’s drawing. Behind the crib doors was the cheapest deal in town. And the most dangerous. The lamppost gave the only light and figures moved about in the sinister illumination as if slowed by the dark. Or by time. Or by resignation. A cry of hate or lust or disgust came from one of the cribs and then a door slammed. Nick turned his head at the noise and when he looked back the woman had vanished. The city block was buried in shadows and he hurried up one side of the street and then the other, looking both ways, tripping and falling over an unconscious body and he went down with a heavy grunt as the bottle fell from his pocket and rattled across the cobblestones.
He sprang to his feet like a good soldier. Backed away from the body quickly with his hands made into fists and eyes of fright. He turned around in a circle as if anticipating being ambushed and then he gathered himself. Realized the body wasn’t moving and no one was reaching for him or even interested. He looked around in the dark and felt disoriented and even tricked. Wondered if she had baited him and she was no longer Ella but she was an enemy. An enemy who knew he would follow and walk into this open grave where she could make him disappear and this was not the place he wanted to disappear. He took several shaky steps backward, his arm stretched out and hand feeling in the dark for guidance. He looked for her again. Saw her nowhere. As if she had morphed with the shadows.
Then he heard a rummaging down a narrow corridor. He felt in his pocket for his own matches but he had left them in the apartment with the sleeping Judah. The sound came again, the noise of something like hungry animals searching in the night for food. He stepped into the corridor, a lean space between the back of the crib houses and the concrete wall running the length of the block behind them. The sound came again, a sound of disarray. A voice cried out and Nick froze. Turned and looked over his shoulder to see how far along he had come, wanting to make sure he could escape. Up ahead in the dark the rummaging continued and two cats screeched and Nick balled his fists again. And then he was snatched and his arm wrenched behind him and he felt the blade on his throat.
“Don’t goddamn move,” the voice said.
The man bent his arm up and pressed the blade against his throat and Nick wanted to yank and turn but he knew that would slice him. The woman in the hat stepped around the man and stood in front of Nick and she kicked him in the gut and the man moved the blade just as Nick went down to his knees and he grabbed the back of Nick’s hair and held him.
“Get his pockets,” he said. The woman opened Nick’s coat and felt inside, taking cigarettes and a fold of dollars and his journal. She then reached around to his backside and lifted out his wallet. She raised the journal and slapped him across the face with it and then she kicked him in the ribs and he fell with his chest against the ground and then the man stomped on his back and they kicked and kicked as Nick drew himself into a ball and grunted with each blow. They paused to catch their breath and then the man delivered a hard punch to the back of Nick’s head and Nick was on the edge of passing out when the woman raised her hand and told the man to leave him be. We got it all. Let’s go spend some money.
The man delivered one more kick into Nick’s side. The woman counted the money and the man said give me the cigarettes and they moved along the thin corridor arm in arm.
Nick rolled over and lay on his back. Touched his throat to make sure there was no blood. He lay there for a long time. Drunk and dizzy eyes into a grayblack sky. Circles of pain where he had been kicked. The cold air drying his open mouth. He finally rolled to his side. Moved to hands and knees. Slowly got himself upright. He moved gingerly with one hand holding his side and the other against the concrete wall to guide. When he reached the end of the corridor a voice came from a balcony across the street. If you want something around here you ain’t got to work so hard, she called. It don’t take much more than a quarter to get what you want on this side of town.
He started walking and sat down in the first saloon he came to. Two dollars had been missed, stuck down in the deep front pocket of his trousers and he got a glass and a bottle of whiskey and sat alone at a table in the corner. A candle on the table waving and with tired eyes he stared at the candle until it hurt and then he followed the spot around the murky saloon until it disappeared. He drank two drinks quickly. A throbbing in the back of his neck. The saloon was empty but for three men sitting at the bar playing cards with the bartender. He felt as though he were sinking. Measured and certain.
The next time he tried to stand the room spun around and he fell across a chair and hit the floor. The men looked at him a moment and then returned to the game. Nick grabbed a chair and lifted himself into it. Now he heard laughter and he turned to look but the saloon was blurred. All was blurred. He put his hands on the chair arms and pushed. Stood again. Wobbled but held on. One step and he was down again and this time he was out. When he woke he had been dragged out of the saloon and he was lying on his back on the sidewalk. His pockets had been emptied for good this time and both his coat and belt were gone. He shivered and was sick and could barely keep his eyes open from the pain exploding through his head and neck. He crawled along the sidewalk. Busted and drunk and cold and he was solitary in the night and on this street and in this city and in this world.
III
42
Kade McCrary had always been the loudest guy in the room no matter the size of the place or the nature of the crowd. His boisterous temperament was matched by the bushlike, coffeebrown beard that draped his face and reached down to his shirt collar and seemed to create a hairy platform for his verbal acrobatics. He stood against the small bar in the train’s dining car, a whittled down cigar pinched between his burly knuckles and a drunken grin causing his whiskers to rise. Lipstick was smeared across the shoulder of his wrinkled denim shirt and across the cheek of the woman holding on to his arm and trying to keep her feet. They had entered a dining car with its whiteclothed tables filled but after half an hour the crowd had fled the goodtiming couple and left them in the solitude of their own havoc.
“Pour me some more,” she said and she leaned back and slapped at his thick arm. He slapped her back with more force than he should have and she lost her balance and hit the floor with a cackle.
“Hell, honey. You can’t have me down there. This is a public place.”
“Get your big ass down here,” she said and she reached up and grabbed him by the suspenders and pulled. He went down to a knee and she rose up and they swapped a sloppy kiss that smeared the candy apple lipstick over both their mouths. The waiter behind the bar leaned over and watched them with irritated eyes and then continued wiping the glasses he had been wiping since they had walked in.
“You have to get up off the floor,” the waiter said. He had been serving in the dining car for ten years and thought he had seen it all. But he hadn’t. He ran his hand across his thin mustache and neatly cropped hair as if his own presentation might somehow affect theirs.
The woman tugged at Kade’s neck and pulled him down all the way and when he fell on top of her, her small body disappeared except for her bare legs that stuck out from her short dress. She raised her legs toward the ceiling and yelled choo choo.
“Get the hell up,” the waiter said and he walked around the bar. Little grunts and snorts of laughter rose from the two as they grabbed and groped and the waiter said they had about five seconds to quit the nonsense.
“Or what?” Kade said and he rose to his feet. The smaller man’s face went into the larger man’s beard and it was wet with
drink and slobber and the waiter stepped back and wiped his face in disgust.
“You’re acting like animals except worse,” the waiter said. “Now stop it.”
“Come on now,” the woman said and she lifted herself from the floor and straightened her dress. “Ain’t nobody in here to be bothered.”
“Not anymore,” the waiter said. “Your carrying on took care of that already. And out walked a carload of tips with them.”
“Hell’s bells,” he said and he grabbed the woman around the waist and pulled her to him. “He wants a tip. What you got left in that little black purse?”
Her purse sat on the bartop and she picked it up and shook it.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Nothing?”
“If it’s anything left then it’s figured out how to rattle around without bothering to make a sound.”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a few singles and a wadded napkin and some stray matches.
“How about a dollar?” he said and he slapped it down on the bar. “I’d say that mustache alone is worth at least a damn dollar.”
The woman crowed and took a cigarette from a pack on the bar.
“You’re incorrigible,” the waiter said.
“What’s that mean, fancy pants?”
“It means you ain’t corrigible,” the woman answered.
“Light this cigar again, honey,” he said and held it toward her. She struck a match and lit her cigarette and then held it to the cigar nub.
The door to the dining car opened and a woman holding a small child saw the couple at the bar and she turned around and walked out.
“You’d be more comfortable in your own seats,” the waiter told Kade.
“You might as well give up,” Kade said. “We ain’t going nowhere.”
The waiter shook his head. Draped the dishtowel over his shoulder and set a glass down on the bar. Kade slipped a pint bottle from his back pocket. He removed the cap and poured the waiter a taste. The waiter picked up the glass and held it to them and the woman clapped as if she had won something. The man took a drink from the bottle and handed it to her and she did the same.
“Here,” the waiter said and he gave her the towel. “Wipe your mouth.”
“You look like a clown,” Kade said. “Got lipstick damn everywhere.”
“Thanks to you,” she said. She wiped the lipstick from the sides of her mouth and cheeks. She then slapped Kade across the head with the towel before giving it back to the waiter.
Kade drank again and then the woman drank again. She then asked him how much longer until New Orleans and he said we’re taking a detour. I got something I got to do in Birmingham.
“You said we were going to New Orleans.”
“We are going to New Orleans. But I said I got to make a stop.”
“You didn’t say nothing about a stop before.”
“I didn’t say nothing about the sun coming up tomorrow neither but it’s going to.”
“Fine then,” she said and she rubbed up next to him. “How much longer? I got the cabin fever.”
“Not long,” the waiter said and glanced at his watch. He sipped his drink and smoked now, leaning against the bar in full surrender. “Maybe thirty minutes.”
“See?” the man said. “Fresh air is on its way.” He slipped his hand down and slid it up under her dress.
She jumped back and said you got to wait boy.
“I ain’t waiting,” he said and he crept toward her with his arms spread wide and she squealed. The waiter knew the only way to deter them from their carnal games would be another drink so he killed his and asked for another. They pawed and pulled and grabbed and the waiter knocked the glass against the bar until Kade finally took his eyes from the woman and said if you’re gonna knock that goddamn glass around at least do it in rhythm but the waiter kept knocking in sporadic beats. Kade finally paused. Winked at the woman. Then he settled against the bar and poured them all another round.
The two walked arm in arm along the Birmingham platform, swaying from side to side, her drunken voice echoing across the station. The cold air chilled her bare legs and he said you need some stockings but she only kicked her feet up and said I ain’t hiding these legs. They reached the end of the platform and Kade said I got to run to the can.
“So do I,” she said.
“Then let’s go.”
The bathrooms were next to the ticket office and she blew him a kiss as she pushed open the bathroom door. He pushed open the door to the men’s room but held it. When the door fell closed behind her he turned and walked back toward the train. A whistle blew and the porter called out for departure and he broke into a run, beard and belly bouncing and he raced along the platform and made it to the dining car just as the train door closed behind him. He bent over, wheezing and coughing. Raising his head to look out of the window and see if she was chasing after him but nothing. The train nudged and then began to slowly pull out of the station. Kade stood. Hands on hips. Big breaths. He reached a barstool and plopped down. He took off his hat and pulled out the bottle. The waiter slid his empty glass over.
43
Judah sat in a chair at the rolltop desk and held the brown bottle. Then he set it down. Picked it up again and swapped it from hand to hand. All you have to do is open it and drink it and go lay down.
It had all happened as he intended except for the final step. He had found a man willing to take a payday in exchange for taking flasks filled with gasoline into Colette’s house and doing his business and then lighting the house on fire. He had found a man who had agreed to light the fire and then leave town. But Judah had known Kade for years and had listened to his boorish voice and watched him start brawls in the saloon and he knew that he might agree to take the money and set the fire and leave town but that he would not leave town for good. And that was what Judah had wanted. He wanted Kade to return and drink and smoke and gamble and run his mouth and let Colette and everyone else know that Judah was the one.
He wanted to give them something to talk about and he wanted to leave Colette stuck. She would know the details and there would be nothing she could do in retaliation because he wouldn’t be there. The brown bottle of arsenic had been sitting in the rolltop desk for months, waiting for Judah to find the guts to open it and drink and be done. And that time had finally arrived on the day that Kade McCrary walked into Colette’s with his pockets filled with Judah’s blood money and said give me a good bottle and a good woman and the softest bed in the prettiest goddamn room you got on the top floor.
There would be no more need for the opium, no need to deaden the pain. No need for gritting his teeth when he tried to get out of a chair or walk across a room and no need for the pile of bloody towels that gathered at the foot of the bed and in the corner of the room downstairs and wherever else he sat for too long. No need of holding a cold rag against the scars and no need of pressing his hands against his chest as he coughed as if to let his own lungs know that he was doing all he could to help. No need to avoid the eyes of others as he had long grown tired of the pitied expressions and he had grown tired of the hands that reached out and tried to help as if he were some ancient and decrepit relic that may crumble in a mild wind.
There would be no more memories of Colette and no more imagining her with him sitting in the apartment sharing a newspaper. Or sharing a bottle of bourbon. Or sharing any of the random movements of life that come with the peaceful acceptance of being with someone you love. No more standing at the end of the block and watching them come and go from the brothel and wondering who was doing what and with who. No more being alone.
He had the arsenic. He had the man he needed. On the morning of the day that he and Kade had agreed to burn it down he had the two barmaids come upstairs and clean the apartment. They straightened the shelves according to his directions, wiped dust from frames and tabletops and chair arms, swept the floors, cleaned the windows of the sitting room, tied back the curtains so that the sun coul
d give light to the crisp and clean room. When they were done he leaned against the wall, pressing on the cane to keep himself upright and knew this is how he wanted to leave it. It would take days for someone to look for him and he would leave the apartment door cracked open so that whoever came would walk inside when he didn’t answer the call. He would be on the bed and at rest and then when they all came to see what happened the apartment would have the appearance of the kind of place where people had lived and loved.
It was a simple plan, he thought. Kade fills the flasks I have given him. He comes to the apartment in the afternoon. I pay him. He goes to Colette’s house and takes a top floor room. I follow out later and stand and watch. I want to see the smoke. I want to see the flames. I want to see her standing in the street with her hands on her hips as she watches it burn. And then I will walk away. I will come back to the apartment. I will take the bottle into the bedroom. I will drink and then I will lay down and die and leave this world to those who belong in it.
And it had gone that way exactly. Except for the man who had seen Judah on the sidewalk as the fire burned. Bent and bleeding and hurting. And he had helped him though Judah hadn’t wished for it because he knew the man was another soldier before the man could say it. It was there on his face and deep in his eyes like it was in all of their eyes. Way down where the dreams and the nightmares rise up. And now he argued with himself. You are the one who accepted his kindness and you are the one who asked him to eat at the saloon and you are the one who talked to him and kept talking to him and you are the one who went upstairs to your room later after he had gone and ignored what you had promised yourself you were going to do and now you’ve lost your goddamn nerve. You won’t drink it and you won’t do it yourself but there are other ways. He was kind to you and you see the same things in him that you see in yourself and he will help you if you ask him. It is a big thing to ask someone who doesn’t understand. But he understands. He has the eyes. He has the voice of the uncertain. He has his own secrets. And if there is one thing the lost are able to recognize it is the others who are just as wounded and wandering.
Nick Page 18