All the Devil's Creatures

by J. D. Barnett

  Seastrunk fought to contain his anger as he leveled his gaze at his deputy. “Bobby, none of that matters now. The Tatum boys are in jail. Their DNA was all over the place. You heard the Reverend—hell, you can look outside. If we do anything that the media could conceive as standing in the way of the prosecution of those dang ugly twins, we’re as cooked as a Christmas hen.”

  “Well, what about the interview yesterday? Wayne cracking for second before his brother and his lawyer shut him up. I think I know who he meant by Jimmy Lee—”

  “I don’t care what you think you know—”

  “Jimmy Lee Monroe. He’s a no-good loser that lives by himself on the edge of town. I stopped him for a DUI once. Not from around here—ex-army stationed out of Shreveport. Dishonorable discharge.”

  “Bobby, I said you’re off the case.”

  “And now Jimmy Lee’s not around, seems to have skipped town—”

  “I’ll interview Jimmy Lee Monroe when he surfaces, but there’s nothing linking him to the murder except the crying word Wayne Tatum. So Bobby—the case is closed as far as we’re concerned. And that’s another thing: I’ve got Hargrave coming down on me so hard I can hardly get a breath. He knows all about our call from Waltz, all about the damn private eye. If I find out you blabbed to that Carter girl—”

  “Now Sheriff, since when are we keeping secrets—”

  “Your safest bet is to stop talking right now, son. And let me tell you something else: there’s a federal hate crime law on the books. That means the FBI can assert jurisdiction over this case any time they want. Congress passed that law because they didn’t trust redneck law enforcement like you—don’t you dare smirk at me; yes, like you, Bobby; that’s how they see you—to go after these things. The last thing we need is for the feds to swoop in here. And one more thing you might be too young or too stupid to understand: the wider world has never believed Jim Crow is really, fully dead down here. They’re all watching this county on TV. We do a thousand things right and one thing wrong, what do you think they’ll notice? Not only that, any slip-up only confirms the worst fears of the conspiracy fringe among the local black folk. Those people will only stick with me so far.”

  Bobby put his hands in his pockets and looked down at Seastrunk, still sitting in his big leather desk chair, glaring up at him. “Now I think I get it, Sheriff. Those people? They’re all just votes to you. You know there aren’t enough yellow dog Democrats left among whites anymore. If you lose the black vote, you’re out of office.”

  Seastrunk stood and leaned forward on his desk so that his face was inches from Bobby’s. He narrowed his gray eyes to slits, and Bobby could smell his musk. “Don’t you even think about trying to turn this around on me, deputy. You are one idiot word away from turning in your badge and gun. You are going to walk out that door and take the rest of the week off. When you come back, your tail better be tucked so far between your legs it tickles your nose.”

  •

  The next day, Bobby looked up from a cooler of live bait crickets outside the filling station on the lake highway to see Tasha Carter lifting the lever on one of the antiquated gas pumps. He walked over.

  “Hidy, Tasha.”

  “Bobby.” She looked surprised and a little wary. “What are you doing here? Why are you out of uniform?”

  “Got the day off. Figured I’d go fishing with my dad this evening.”

  “Day off? Why?”

  “I guess Seastrunk and I had some words.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll bet I know what about.”

  Bobby reached to take the gas pump nozzle from her. “Here. You’re all dressed up.”

  Tasha jerked away. “I got it.” She inserted the nozzle into her tank and then turned back at Bobby with a look of consternation and impatience, as if she were still an overworked associate in a big city law firm. As if she could not spare him even the three minutes it would take her to pump the gas.

  Bobby said, “It’ll blow over.”

  “Bobby, I don’t think you appreciate how serious this is. To suggest the victim may have had it coming …”

  “Come on, Tasha. Why does everyone keep saying that? That’s not what I meant. And anyway, you heard Wayne Tatum. We need to find Jimmy Lee Monroe.”

  Tasha shook her head. “You don’t get it. What you said … it’s about people in charge not caring about crimes like this. It’s about history. About when white racists could murder blacks with abandon and get away with it.”

  “You know it’s not like that anymore. If it ever was.”

  Tasha looked at him as if he had just spat into her face. Or her father’s face. Her eyes clouded with anger. “It was. It was like that, Bobby. And don’t you dare suggest otherwise, or you’re no better no better than the rest of them.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Like the rest of who?”

  The pump clicked off and Tasha looked down at the nozzle. She stood hunched and tense. Then she turned on Bobby, yanking the nozzle free and gesturing with it and dribbling gasoline on his shoes.

  “You know who. They’re your people.”

  Bobby felt himself growing angry. He leaned forward, could smell Tasha’s perfume. He closed his mind to it.

  “Why you privileged little brat. My people? What do you know about my people? I’ll tell you what, my people do real work. Their hands are blistered, and yes—their necks are red. From the sun they toil in.”

  Tasha laughed. “Right, Bobby. I think you’re the one stuck in another era.”

  Bobby would not let himself loose his stride. “They don’t grow up in soft places like Austin. And they don’t go to fancy East Coast schools on affirmative action—”

  Tasha gasped. “Don’t you dare—”

  “That’s right. You heard me. Girl, I’m smart. I could cut it with any of those rich pricks up there. But smart’s not good enough, is it? You’ve got to have one of two things, right? A family name—like Duchamp—or you you’ve got to be the right color—”

  She issued a shocked little scream. “Bobby, you stop right now—”

  “—the right color so the Ivy League liberals can pull you up there and pat themselves on the back and you can all sit around together in your Harvard club and laugh to beat the day while we—my people—get shit on year-in, year-out by every elite from Washington to Wall Street.”

  Standing together at that little filling station in the pines, among odors of fish and gasoline, they breathed at each other and glared at each other. Then Tasha smirked and said: “First of all, I attended Yale. Not Harvard. Second, I think you’re the most disappointing creature I’ve ever met. Such promise behind those eyes. But you’re really just another redneck with a chip on his shoulder. Call me when you learn to engage in a little self reflection.”

  She turned away and Bobby watched her get into her car and drive off. And then he hurled his little Styrofoam container of crickets to the ground where they squirmed and chirped and twitched in dying lethargy.

  •

  Furloughed, Bobby spent a second day drinking beer and taking shots at Bubba’s Roadhouse. He sat in a booth with a little gang of out-of-work or underworked roughnecks and laborers and two-bit mechanics who now regarded him a hero of the race.

  One of them said: “You cain’t have nothin’. Niggers done took over this county. Bet you ten-to-one ol’ Seastrunk replace you with a colored deputy.”

  Another said: “Probably a woman.”

  Another said: “Got me a cousin down in Beaumont. Worked at the same dadgum refinery for twenty years. Foreman. Skilled. Never missed a day sick, not a spot on his record. Come time for promotion, they pass him up for a no-account black with no experience. Affirmative action quotas.”

  Bobby drank his beer and stayed quiet, nodding.

  Then one of them said: “Bobby, look at yourself. They jump all over you because you tell the truth—that maybe not every goddamn thing that happens is because everybody’s a racist. Maybe the niggers got work to do on
their own account and not expect the whole goddamn world to bend over backwards for them.”

  Bobby felt himself getting very drunk. He said, “Any of y’all seen Jimmy Lee Monroe around lately?”

  “That ol’ boy used to come in every now and then. Been a week or two.”

  “What do you want with him?”

  Bobby got up, wobbled a bit, mumbled. “Fool owes me money.” He went to the john and instead of returning to the booth went straight to the bar. The bar stools were all empty. Hard driving, outlaw-country music blared through the cavernous space.

  “Pour me a shot, Mr. McGee.”

  Bubba McGee looked up from the glass he was polishing. “Son, go home. It’s not yet sundown, and you’re drunk as dancing ants.”

  “I’m fine. I’ve got money. So pour me a shot of your finest whiskey.” Bobby tried to wink but lost track of which eye was which and ended up giving the barman a slow blink. “And by ‘finest’ I mean your cheapest rot gut.”

  McGee poured the shot and served it on the bar with a tall glass of ice water. Then he said, “I don’t much like the company you’ve been keeping lately, deputy.”

  “They’re your paying customers. And since when did you become my daddy?”

  “I’m not your daddy, but I know him well. He’s a good man—”

  “He’s nutty as a fruitcake and ain’t good for nothing but fishing just like you ain’t good for nothing but slinging drinks.”

  “—and you’re an officer of the law. You’d best be remembering that, son.”

  “I ain’t an officer of nothing, this week, Mr. McGee.”

  “I know it’s been bad. But all things pass.”

  “Hit me again.”

  “Not yet.” McGee looked up and down the bar and then leaned in toward Bobby. “You sober enough to remember if I tell you something?”

  “Sure, I reckon.”

  “I hear you’ve been asking around for Jimmy Lee Monroe. Is that right?”

  “I guess.” Bobby held his shot before him but did not drink, peering at the barman over the amber liquid.

  “Do you know who Monroe works for?”

  “Nossir.”

  “Robert Duchamp, that’s who.”

  “The congressman? You’re full of shit. What could a moron like Monroe do for a congressman? And anyway, so what?”

  “Alright, listen at me. Monroe’s been working for Duchamp for years—off the books. When I heard the Tatum boys were throwing his name around, I figured there might be a lot more to that killing that meets the eye. Now, I got a story:

  “Back when Duchamp was in Congress, I used to throw quite a bit of money his way. Smart thing to do if you own a honky-tonk like this. Well, he’s got a big ol’ spread up around Sulphur Springs where he’d invite his biggest donors for quail hunts. We’d spend three or four days up there, shooting all day, drinking all night. Jimmy Lee was always around. He was cookie, you might say—he drove the jeep, cleaned and fried the birds, cleaned up after. Went for liquor runs. And sometimes more delicate duties. Like one time he drove up with a van full of Mexican whores. Now I didn’t see nothing and I didn’t hear nothing, but I know five girls showed up that night. And there was only four got in that van the next morning. I never saw what happened to that fifth girl and nobody ever said a word about it. I guess maybe she caught a ride home early. Maybe.

  “All this is to say, Jimmy Lee does Duchamp’s dirty work. One night, we’re all sitting around the fire. Duchamp’s drunk. Hell, we all are. He gets Jimmy Lee to start telling his war stories. Like voter intimidation, money drops for the mob. Dirty, overseas money—ugly stuff. Now fast forward: the Bordelon girl winds up dead and the boys who did it start throwing Jimmy Lee’s name around. Jimmy Lee disappears. Here’s the thing—I can’t imaging Jimmy Lee doing anything that Duchamp’s not involved with. You see those two together, it’s like Duchamp owns Jimmy Lee. Like an ol’ yellow hound dog and its master.

  “And on top of all that, there’s what I’m hearing from the courthouse: Duchamp has taken a keen interest in this case. He’s working on the sheriff to wrap it up. He’s talking to the DA every day. Am I right?”

  Bobby put down the shot glass and sipped his water and tried to get his muddled mind to focus. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger before answering McGee, though it required no reflection to determine the barman was right. And that he could not go to the sheriff with any information he got from McGee until he had proof.

  And he might need that Dallas lawyer and his P.I. to get that proof for him.

  He opened his eyes and looked up at McGee and said, “Yessir, you’re right more or less. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because Robert Duchamp’s a worthless piece of shit.”

  “Okay. Say we can link Jimmy Lee to the murder. How do we link him to Duchamp? Just your word?”

  “I can do better. Here awhile back, I went to a function at Duchamp’s house in Dallas—this was after he left Congress and moved up there. The thing was for some charity, put on by Duchamp’s wife. Well, a group of us are in Duchamp’s study, drinking whiskey. And who comes walking through the back yard and right in through the patio door but Jimmy Lee Monroe. Duchamp liked to have a fit. ‘What the hell you doing at my home? Who let you in here?’ I’m sure he reamed out and fired the servant or whatever who did. Anyway, Jimmy Lee wanted money, claimed he hadn’t been paid for some job. He wasn’t being insubordinate or nothing—had his tail between his legs the whole time, like he just didn’t know better but to show up while Kathleen Duchamp’s throwing a party. And everything was topsy-turvy then, right after the scandal and Duchamp’s resignation.

  “Anyway, when Duchamp calmed down, he walked to the closet in that study and down in the floor of it, hidden, he uncovered a safe. He opened that sucker up and pulled out a ledger book and a stack of hundred dollar bills. He paid off Jimmy Lee and wrote something in that book. See, Duchamp’s a snake, but he’s a tight wad, and he’s super organized. My daughter would say he’s ‘anal.’ He’s not gonna let a dime pass through his paws that it’s not documented, and he’ll hold onto to any scrap of paper that comes to him.

  “So if there’s a connection in writing between Jimmy Lee and Duchamp, that’s where it’ll be—in that safe, and in that ledger book.”

  Chapter 22

  Robert Duchamp’s cell phone chirped. A text message from Jimmy Lee. And a picture. Poor little idiot, texting to an impossible number, into the void, not knowing if anyone is on the other end. But I am.

  The text said: “Have product. Coming to town.”

  The photo was of one of the clones.

  He grinned and leaned back in the ergonomic chair behind his desk and called his pathetic lackey.

  “Son, how good it was to get your message. Did you take care of our two little issues?”

  “Oh, yeah, Speaker. Taken care of.” Jimmy Lee laughed—a fast, high pitched cackle Duchamp had not heard from him before.

  “Good. You’ll meet me at our old spot tomorrow. With the product, right?”

  “Yeah, but no. Not yet. I need a little more time.” That cackle again. “Gotta follow the Ghost Cat. The Ghost Cat’s gonna set things right for you, Speaker. No more Jimmy Lee screw-ups. We’re gonna to fix everything just like you wanted.”

  Duchamp felt a growing discomfort deep in his bowels. “What do you mean, Jimmy Lee? You’re making me nervous. Who the hell’s Kat? Are you all right?”

  “Yessir, I’m hot, Speaker man. Just give me a day. Or two. Then you’ll have your monster-in-a-jar and I’ll make everything like you want it and you won’t have nothing to yell at me about no more. Cause the Ghost Cat’s got a plan and you’re going to love it and—”

  Duchamp heard a fit of coughing over the phone, then deep labored breathing. When Jimmy Lee came back on the line, his voice sounded subdued, distant, like that of a sleep talker. Or a whisper from a mad and troubled apparition.

  “It’ll be pretty, Speaker. What we’re gon
na do. It’ll be real pretty.”

  •

  The Prince met the Group in a windowless office in a nondescript warehouse district on the scrappy edge of a blue collar suburb carved out from the prairie in the waning years of the Vietnam War. He took his usual seat beside the old woman, a heavy wheeled briefcase on the floor between his feet. By the Prince’s design, Duchamp arrived last.

  Only the Prince knew this would be the final meeting, the breakup of the Group. Then he could would into his own.

  Turning to the Congressman, he said, “Did you manage to retrieve the product?”

  “My boy’s driving it up as we speak.”

  The Prince nodded but felt no relief, only amazement at Duchamp’s stupidity. “This is getting too dangerous. The Doctor wants to shut down the site.”

  “What? No—”

  The Rhodesian said, “There are other sites.”

  “But not as far along as ours,” said the Dame. She looked at the Oilman, friend of Duchamp’s father. “You: talk to the Doctor. You’re the only one left who knew the him—back then, when the project started. He’ll listen to you.”

  “She’s right,” the Rhodesian said. “The Doctor owes his life to you.”

  “Hardly to me alone.” The Oilman spoke softly, addressing no one in particular. “And it was sixty years ago when we got him out. He’s an old man now. Very old. And stubborn.”

  The Patrician said, “How old now, anyway?”

  “One-seventeen, one-twenty? Who knows anymore.”

  “Old as Methuselah,” said the Dame.

  “Yes. And he’ll only speak directly to the Prince now.”

  The room was silent except for the pot of coffee in the corner clicking as it cooled.

  Duchamp said, “Didn’t y’all hear? My boy’s cleaned up this mess.”

  Glances around the table, and no one responded. The Prince knew that the lawyer Waltz and his P.I. had survived. He had had no trouble tracking them, though such methods seemed beyond the skills of the Congressman and his pathetic manservant.