Cemetery Road

by Greg Iles

  “So,” I say to Paul, “is Jerry Lee coming or not?”

  He grins and pumps a tanned fist. “You better believe it! His driver just pulled up with him. I just got the text. We’re about to hear some bona fide boogie, boy. I’d better run down and bring him up here.”

  “Hot damn!” exults Blake Donnelly. “I brung him a special bottle of Calvert Extra. I’m gonna go get it.”

  For two minutes the orbiting planets came together, and now they fly apart once more. Paul squeezes my shoulder like he used to on the basketball court, then he and Max spin off in Blake Donnelly’s wake. Wyatt Cash and Tommy Russo fade a few feet away and begin talking among themselves. Only Arthur Pine moves closer to me. The tanned, gray-templed attorney leans in and says, “It really would be regrettable to publish anything that could upset the Chinese at this juncture. Don’t you agree?”

  “Mr. Pine, the Watchman is a newspaper, not a propaganda organ. We don’t consider public reaction when making editorial decisions.”

  Pine actually laughs at this. “You’ve obviously forgotten how well I used to know your father.”

  My back stiffens. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Only that Duncan knew part of the job of a small-town daily is boosterism. That’s always been the deal, in every small town in America. It’s part of the compact of capitalism.”

  “Is that so?”

  Pine nods with unreflective confidence.

  “Well . . . I never signed that compact.”

  With Nadine still talking to Sally Matheson, I turn and move back into the crowd. Five seconds later, Jet brushes against me as though by accident, then laughs and catches my wrist. She chose her spot well: we’re surrounded by a ring of people three bodies thick.

  “We need to talk,” she says softly, leaning in close.

  Her breath carries the sweet scent of alcohol, and she’s wearing the same sapphire earrings she had on this afternoon, though the silver pendant has disappeared.

  “Should we dance?” I ask.

  “With Paul here? Check your phone.”

  Then she’s past me, swept onward by another current of the party.

  After a backward glance at Nadine, I take out my burner phone. Jet’s text reads: We have to talk. Meet me by the wall of the penthouse. Not many people that side of the roof. See if Nadine can run interference 4 us. If Paul moves our way, she can head him off for a minute or two. Maybe dance with him. If she loses him, she should text us a warning.

  “Sure,” I mutter. “Nadine would just love that. Jesus.”

  But Jet wouldn’t have asked me to risk a public conversation unless not talking would pose a greater danger. I see Paul in my mind, laughing as he talked about Jerry Lee Lewis. And Max defending me from Beau Holland’s drunken assault. They can’t possibly know about Jet and me. Where is the danger at this moment?

  We have to talk . . .

  Christ, I think, looking around for Nadine. The things you do when you’re in love.

  Chapter 20

  Walking through the crowd toward Nadine and Sally, I hear a commotion over by the Aurora’s double doors. Voices rise, then spontaneous applause rolls across the rooftop. The star attraction must have arrived at last.

  “What was that about?” Nadine asks, suddenly at my side again. “I saw Jet go after you.”

  “She needs to talk to me about Buck’s death. Do you think you can run interference for us for a couple of minutes?”

  Nadine opens her mouth but no sound comes out. From her eyes I can see that I’ve profoundly disappointed her, maybe even hurt her. So far as I know, she suspects nothing about Jet and me sleeping together, at least not in the present. She does know we had a relationship during high school.

  “Listen,” I start, but she shakes her head and says, “Just make it quick, okay? We don’t need a fistfight up here tonight. You and Beau Holland came close enough.”

  “There won’t be any fight,” I assure her.

  “Then why do you need me ‘running interference’?”

  I concede her point with a silent plea for understanding.

  “Is Paul Matheson on the wrong side of Buck’s death?” she asks. “Potential suspect?”

  I glance over at Paul, who has reappeared beside the stage and looks to be pounding straight whiskey with Blake Donnelly. “I hope not. But I honestly don’t know. He’s acting a little paranoid today.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Nadine says with a hint of Dorothy Parker in her voice. “Just be quick, Marshall. Seriously.”

  “I will. Text me if he gets away from you, okay?”

  She shakes her head in frustration. “Just get going.”

  As casually as possible, I make my way over to the old penthouse suite and walk around the corner. Jet is waiting there, twenty yards away, leaning on the balustrade of the roof.

  “Here you are,” she says, turning back over her shoulder.

  As I walk closer, she looks past me, then pops up on tiptoe and kisses me on the mouth.

  I pull away. “Shit, are you drunk? Anybody could walk around that corner.”

  “A little tipsy. But I have a surprise for you.”

  “Good or bad?”

  She points to a forest-green door set in the stucco wall. “That leads into the penthouse. They’re using it to store booze for the party.”

  “So?”

  “I want to see the rest of the hotel.”

  “Jet . . . you’re crazy. This isn’t the time. Besides, they’ve got it sealed up tight.”

  She rolls her eyes like I’m being a spoilsport. “Come on! Just the lobby. I’ve heard it’s unbelievable, all the Egyptian stuff.”

  I wonder if somebody slipped a drug into her glass. “The lobby’s seven floors down,” I remind her. “Even if we were crazy enough to go, it would take way too long.”

  “The Nefertiti Lounge, then. It’s right in there. Just a few yards away.”

  “It’s blocked off, Jet. Everybody wants to see the reno—” Another roar of applause drowns my voice, then rises into the night sky.

  “I’d say the headliner just hit the stage,” she says with a smile. “Come on!”

  “What happened to playing it cool tonight?”

  “Screw that.” She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the door. As we go through, I hear a drawl that sounds like Blake Donnelly’s over the PA.

  “Sixty years after he last played this rooftop, here’s Jerry Lee Lewis, the Killer, from FERRIDAY, LOUISIANA!”

  Another roar goes up, but the door shuts behind us before I hear even one piano chord. A middle-aged black man holding a case of champagne looks up in surprise.

  “Can I help you folks?”

  “No, thank you,” Jet replies. “We just need to check something for Beau Holland.”

  And with that we’re past him, moving through a penthouse smelling of wet paint. Jet leads me through another door, outside of which is a small service elevator. As soon as we’re shut into the small cubicle, she takes my face in her hands and rises for another kiss.

  “What the hell’s going on?” I ask, holding her away from me as the elevator descends. You’re acting like this is high school, I want to add, but I don’t. Jet never acted like this in high school.

  “Sally was right,” she says irritably. “You and Nadine look much too much like a couple for my taste.”

  I start to laugh, but there’s genuine jealousy in her eyes. I didn’t realize Jet had been standing close enough to hear Sally’s remark.

  “Are you getting a taste for younger women?” she asks.

  “Are you serious? Nadine’s only eight years younger than we are.”

  Jet’s eyebrows arch. “I’d give a lot to be thirty-eight again.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t.”

  As the lights on the brass panel above us tick off the floors, I hit M to stop us on the mezzanine. The lobby should be visible from there, and we’re less likely to be seen by anyone who might have sneaked into the lobby from the f
irst-floor entrance. Jet starts to complain, then nods approval as the car grinds to a stop.

  Before the door opens, she steals her kiss, a quick, urgent probing of the tongue that makes clear she wants more. This new incarnation of my lover has thrown me, and I feel a strong impulse to go straight back to the roof before we get into real trouble. But Jet is already dragging me from the elevator.

  “Look!” she cries, pointing down a narrow corridor toward a polished brass balcony rail. “I’ll bet that’s it.”

  Even before we reach the rail, I see the points of the great marble obelisks that bookend the lobby entrance. Jet gasps when she reaches the rail, then pulls me to her side. Even in the half-light of security lamps, the lobby is something to behold. Scaffolding and drop cloths cover several areas, but the Egyptian art and hieroglyphics have obviously been restored, and a massive Sphinx gazes silently over the room, sitting atop a fountain that at this moment is completely dry.

  “That fountain was inspired by one in Paris,” Jet says. “This is going to be so great for the city. That EB-5 scam would have been a disaster.”

  “Jet, seriously, why are we down here?” I take her by the shoulder and turn her so that she must look into my eyes. “You don’t care about this kind of crap.”

  “Sure, I do. I just don’t usually have time to focus on it.”

  “But tonight you do? Of all nights? I thought you wanted to talk about Paul. Or Buck. I’ve been thinking we should file a legal challenge to temporarily halt construction at the mill site.”

  “You need bones to do that. Not pottery.”

  “But with the coroner’s statement—”

  “Byron Ellis isn’t a pathologist. He’s not even an M.D. Can we please just drop all that for tonight? Let’s finish what we started this afternoon.”

  She reaches between us and gives my penis a hard squeeze. I’m not shocked by her directness, but by her ignoring a subject that on any other night would be obsessing her.

  I catch hold of her wrist and push her hand away. “Come on, Jet. Paul’s bound to be looking for you by now. He’ll want to dance with you.”

  “Oh, bullshit. He’s watching Jerry Lee Lewis.”

  “Jet—”

  “And there’s Nadine, remember?” she says in a singsong voice. “Paul will be happy to spend ten minutes dancing with that little number.” Jet grabs my cock again, and this time she hangs on, pulling steadily. “Besides, I don’t want you going back to her until I’ve marked my territory.”

  “You marked it this afternoon.”

  “Did you shower before you picked her up?”

  “Did you snort coke or something?” I grab her hand and yank it up between our chests. “Listen! You’re going to take that service elevator back up to the roof. I’m going to wait here five minutes, then get on the main elevators. Find Paul and make him dance, so you’re busy by the time I walk back into his field of vision.”

  She looks longingly down into the lobby. “You’re no fun tonight. You need some inspiration.” Without further conversation, she turns to the rail, leans against it, and hikes her skirt over her hips. “Come on,” she says. “Just go in. I’m still wet from this afternoon.” Her derriere is nut-brown and practically bare thanks to the thong she’s wearing. Another departure from character—she never wears thongs.

  Not for one instant do I consider plunging into her. The absurdity of the scene comes home to me in a sickening wave of anxiety. This woman is smarter than any I’ve ever known, yet here she stands, leaning against a balcony rail with her dress over her hips, visible to anybody who might be in the dark lobby below. A security guard, for example. Or surveillance cameras. With a shudder of fear I scan the high corners but see no evidence of cameras. While she waits for me to enter her, I walk ten yards up the carpet, toward the main bank of elevators.

  “Get back up to the roof,” I say in an urgent whisper, turning around for only a moment. “Right now. And think of a good story about where you’ve been.”

  Very slowly, Jet straightens up from the rail, then pulls her dress down and presses it flat. “Please come back,” she says, looking at the floor.

  Her voice is so lifeless that I walk back to her.

  “Jet, what the hell? Has something bad happened? Are you afraid to tell me?”

  She takes a deep breath, lets out a long sigh. When she looks up, there are tears in her eyes. “I think I’m losing it a little,” she says. “Maybe more than a little. I feel desperate. I’ve always known that my chance of getting custody of Kevin is nearly nonexistent. Buck’s murder was like an exclamation point on that. The power they have. Because they’re going to get away with it. Aren’t they?”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it.” I take hold of her right hand and pull her away from the rail. “What about that plan you mentioned to me?”

  She shrugs. “You’ll probably think it’s too dangerous. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. I’m drunker than I thought.” She swallows hard, then wavers on her feet. All I can see in my mind is Paul combing the roof for her. “When I saw you walk in with Nadine tonight,” Jet goes on, “that hit me hard. Took my breath away, actually. It drove home how stuck I am. And you’re not. You and she could leave for New Orleans tonight, or Paris, and I’d still be trapped in my marriage.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I assure her. “Nadine and I are friends, that’s all.”

  “But it could. That’s my point. It’s the natural thing. You’re single, she’s single . . . she’s great, and she deserves somebody like you. Fuck!”

  After looking to my right and left to make sure no one can see us, I pull Jet tight against me. “You’ve got to calm down. We’re going to find a way out of this. Buck’s death might even be it. If the Poker Club is really behind that, then Max could go to prison.”

  Jet tries a smile, but it fails. The strain in her face is telling. She doesn’t believe she will ever get custody of her son.

  I gently kiss her forehead, as she did mine this afternoon. “Come on,” I say softly. “You’re tougher than this. You’ve spent your life tilting at windmills. If anybody can nail those bastards, you can. We’ll talk tomorrow on the burner phones.”

  She reaches up to wipe mascara from her eyes but succeeds only in smearing it.

  “Wait, let me do that. Crouch down.”

  Jet kneels on the carpet. Pulling out my shirttail, I carefully wipe the mascara from the orbits of her eyes. “There. That’s the best I can do. Now, get back up to that roof. I’ll be five minutes behind you.”

  She closes her eyes for a moment, resetting her nerves. “I love you,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I lost my shit.”

  “You’re allowed. I love you, too. Now go.”

  This time her smile has life in it. She turns and walks swiftly back to the service elevator that leads to the penthouse. As I watch her disappear into it, I hear something shift in the lobby below. Whirling to the rail, I look back over the great dark room. I see no one. If there was anyone down there, I missed them.

  When I step back onto the Aurora’s roof, I half expect to find Paul Matheson waiting for me. All I see is drunk revelers thrashing like penitents on the floor of a Pentecostal church while Jerry Lee Lewis bashes his grand piano into joyous submission on the little rooftop stage. Lewis may be over eighty, but he’s in constant motion, his slicked-back, dyed-black hair glinting under a makeshift spotlight while women who saw him when he was a wild-haired blond of twenty heave and gasp before the stage. As “Mean Woman Blues” rings out into the night over Bienville, I scan the churning bodies for Nadine. I see no sign of her.

  “Looking for somebody?” Lauren Bacall asks in my ear.

  I turn to find Nadine looking quite pleased with herself at having fooled me for even a second. “You promised you’d be quick,” she scolds. “That was not quick.”

  “Jet’s drunk.”

  “I noticed. Did she get what she wanted from you?”

  “She just wanted to tell me s
ome things.”

  “I see that.” Nadine is looking down at my waist, where a fold of my shirttail hangs over my belt. The black stains on it are obviously mascara. “That must have been an interesting conversation.”

  “That’s not what you think. I’ll explain later. Let’s dance.”

  Nadine hesitates a moment, but then she takes my proffered arm and twirls us both into the whirl of flesh and flying jewelry. Around us people are jitterbugging or doing what my mother always called the “dirty bop.” Just as we find sufficient space to dance, however, “Mean Woman Blues” crashes to an end, and Lewis starts into “That Lucky Old Sun,” an elegiac number about nature being oblivious to the travails of the workingman.

  “Are you up for a slow song?” I ask.

  Nadine looks uncertain once more, but there’s a defiant glint in her eye. Just as I think she’s about to lead me off the dance floor, she slips into my arms like she’s done it a thousand times before. Most nearby couples are gently swaying to the piano, while a few move gracefully through the rest of us, doing dance steps I can’t name, with a fluidity that suggests they’ve either been together for many decades or have the genes of mating serpents. A few feet behind us, maybe twenty couples turn slowly in the empty swimming pool. The joined bodies silhouetted against the bright blue walls have the look of a surrealist art exhibit. Thanks to my height, I can see Jerry Lee a lot better than Nadine can. The old legend looks utterly absorbed in his performance and sings every word with conviction. As I watch him, I realize Jet is dancing with Paul only three feet from the stage. She’s looking right at me.

  Her eyes are those of a trapped animal.

  Breaking eye contact, I murmur, “He does that song better than anybody ever did. Even Ray Charles. There’s a lot of suffering in that voice.”

  Nadine nods against my shoulder. “Did you read Rick Bragg’s biography of him?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Lewis lost a two-year-old son, exactly the way you did. The boy drowned in a swimming pool near Ferriday, just downriver from here.”

  A strange numbness comes over me, and I pull back, looking into Nadine’s eyes. “Really?”