November Road

by Lou Berney

  “He doesn’t have a wife,” Seraphine said.

  “Ex-wife?” Barone said. “Girlfriend? Brother or sister?”

  “Nobody.”

  “How many people do you have watching for him here at the airport?”

  “Two, since last night. Plus two at the train station and two more at the bus depot downtown. And I’ve notified everyone in the organization.”

  “I’ll need a new car,” Barone said.

  “The black Pontiac at the back of the lot.”

  Barone drove back downtown. The room clerk at the Rice told him that the night shift came on at four. Barone waited in the bar. He chased his last two pills with a glass of cold beer.

  The night-shift bell captain with his epaulets and double row of brass buttons said yeah, he knew the man Barone was talking about. A handsome Dan, sharp dresser, dark hair and light eyes. Yeah, he’d seen him last night. Around eight o’clock or so, hotfooting it out of the lobby like the devil himself was on his tail.

  Barone had been right. Remy had blown his shot at Guidry. So long, Remy, it was good to know you.

  “You put him in a cab?” Barone asked the bell captain.

  “He didn’t want to wait for one.”

  “Which direction did he hotfoot it?”

  Barone walked up to the corner of Fannin Street. He looked left and then right. Two blocks south down Fannin was the Texas State Hotel. That’s where Barone would go if the devil was on his tail and he needed to catch a cab in a hurry.

  The first hack he talked to outside the Texas State Hotel didn’t know anything. The second hack sent him to a third hack.

  “Yeah,” the third hack said. “I rode him out to the airport last night.”

  “You’re sure it was him?” Barone said.

  “Sure I’m sure. I remember because he tipped me five bucks on a dollar fare. I figured he must’ve had a well come in.”

  So Guidry had taken a cab to the airport and jumped on the first flight out of Houston. Seraphine’s people at the airport must have just missed him. But she’d be able to figure out which flight Guidry took, where it was headed.

  “What time did you drop him at the airport?” Barone said. “What time exactly?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Let me think. Eight-thirty or so.”

  But slow down, Barone told himself. Go back. Guidry left a five-dollar tip on a dollar fare. That was a helluva tip. Either Guidry was dumb or he was smart. Of course the hack would remember a tip that big. Maybe Guidry wanted the hack to remember it, remember him.

  “Did you see him go inside?” Barone said.

  The hack was confused. “Did I what?”

  “See him walk through the door and go inside the terminal.”

  “Why wouldn’t he go inside?” the hack said. “I don’t know. I didn’t stick around. They don’t let you stick around after you drop a passenger. You gotta have a permit to wait in the pickup line.”

  Barone used the pay phone in the lobby of the Texas State Hotel to call Seraphine.

  “Have one of your boys at the airport ask around on the taxi line and see if he took a cab back into town last night,” Barone said.

  “A cab back from the airport?” Seraphine said.

  “That’s what I said.”

  She didn’t ask any more questions. Twenty minutes later she called back.

  “One driver says maybe,” she said. “He’s not sure.”

  “Where did he drop the fare?” Barone said.

  “The corner of Lockwood and Sherman.”

  A neighborhood of crummy old Victorians southeast of downtown. Barone was getting somewhere now.

  “Are you certain about this, mon cher?” Seraphine said. “A flight to Miami left at nine o’clock, so …”

  “Is he smart?” Barone said. “Guidry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he’s still in Houston. Who here owes him a favor?”

  She thought about it. “Ah.”

  “Who?”

  “Dolly Carmichael lives in the Second Ward. She used to manage Vincent Grilli’s clubs, up until a year or two ago.”

  Seraphine had an address for her, on Edgewood, a ten-minute stroll from where? From the corner of Lockwood and Sherman, where the driver at the airport had dropped his fare. Barone wrote down the address and hung up. He went outside and looked around. A skinny colored kid was loitering at the bus stop across the street. Barone walked over.

  “Do you know how to drive?” Barone said.

  “Shoot,” the colored kid said. “Do I know how to drive.”

  If Barone kept trying to steer and shift and flip the turn signal with just his left hand, his one good hand, sooner or later he’d end up ramming the Pontiac into a wall.

  “I’ll give you a dollar if you drive me out to the Second Ward,” Barone said. “I’ve got a car.”

  “Shoot. You’ll give me a dollar.”

  “Two dollars. Take it or leave it.”

  The colored kid drew himself up to his full height and glared. He weighed all of a buck twenty and couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old.

  “I don’t do none of that,” the kid said. “I’ll tell you right now. If that’s what you after.”

  “I want you to drive me to the Second Ward,” Barone said. “That’s what I’m after. How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  A lie. “Let’s go.”

  “What happened to your hand?” the colored kid said.

  “I cut it shaving my palms. Let’s go.”

  The colored kid knew how to drive, more or less. Barone made sure he stuck to the speed limit, signaled every turn, stopped for the yellow lights. They parked down the street from the address on Edgewood.

  A two-story Victorian painted blue with white gingerbread trim. Flowers in the boxes and the yard not too weedy. Next door, yellow with white trim, a Mexican woman sat on her porch and rocked a baby in her arms.

  “Mexicans,” the colored kid said.

  “What do you have against Mexicans?” Barone said.

  “Shoot. What do I have against Mexicans.”

  “Tell me. What did a Mexican ever do to you?”

  “Nothing,” the kid said. “You Mexican? You don’t look Mexican.”

  “No, I’m not Mexican,” Barone said. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  A few minutes later, the baby on the porch fell asleep and the Mexican woman went back inside. Dolly Carmichael’s house was dark except for one light on upstairs. Barone told the kid to wait for him.

  A big elm screened Dolly’s side door from the street. Barone picked the lock. The chain was latched, but he carried a rubber band in his wallet. He reached inside and looped one end of the rubber band over the door handle, the other end over the button at the end of the chain. Turn the handle. That easy. The chain slid down the notch and dropped free.

  Dolly was in the front bedroom, taking off her earrings. She turned and saw him and didn’t scream. Barone put a finger to his lips anyway and closed the door softly behind him.

  “Sit,” he said.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. “May I put on a robe, please?”

  “No,” Barone said. She was older than he’d expected. Pushing seventy, at least. A scrappy old broad with glittering eyes. “Where is he?”

  “Pardon me?” she said.

  “Where is he?” Barone said.

  “Who?”

  He walked over and sat down next to her. “Which bedroom? Left or right side of the hall?”

  “There’s nobody in the house but me,” she said. “Go see for yourself.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m not scared of you.”

  Barone had heard that before. Only at the beginning, though, never at the end. He touched her earlobe, the spot where she’d had it pierced. She tried not to flinch. The old-timer who’d taught Barone the ropes had said, one time, “The fear of pain is more powerful than any pain itself.” And then he’d winked. “Unless you know
what you’re doing.”

  On a table in the corner sat a portable phonograph and a stack of albums. The album on the top of the stack was ’Round About Midnight. “’Round Midnight” was the first track on the album.

  “You like Miles Davis?” Barone said.

  “Just get it over with or get out of my house,” she said.

  Barone started to ask her if she believed in God. Probably she’d say no. Or ha! Barone might believe, though. Not God with a white beard. But if life was color and noise and pain, there had to be a backing for it, canvas for the paint. Friday night he’d listened to the old man in New Orleans play “’Round Midnight.” Which got him onto that Christmas party at Mandina’s, which now that he thought about it was when and where he saw Frank Guidry the first time. And now here was the song again, the Miles Davis version, in the old broad’s bedroom.

  “He was here,” Barone said. “Where did he go?”

  “Who was here, for Chrissakes?”

  “Guidry.”

  Her confusion was genuine. He could tell. Watch the forehead, the crease between the eyebrows, the pull of the lip. That was another thing the old-timer had taught Barone.

  “Frank Guidry? You mean Frank Guidry?” she said.

  Barone stood. “You can put your robe on.”

  “Good Lord,” she said. “I haven’t seen Frank Guidry since I don’t know when. It’s been three years at least.”

  He checked the bedrooms, just to make sure. When he came back, she was pouring rye into a glass. Her hand shaking, the rye spilling over.

  “Do you have any aspirin?” he said.

  “In the bathroom. The medicine cabinet.”

  He chewed up four aspirin and helped himself to some of the rye. “Any guess where he might be headed? Carlos would appreciate your help.”

  “He’ll try to get out of the country, I suppose,” she said.

  Barone supposed so, too. “Who owes him a favor?”

  She laughed, like a rock breaking another rock. “Who’s Frank Guidry ever done a favor for in his entire goddamn life?”

  Barone started to leave.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You ought to go see Doc Ortega about that hand. He’s just over there off Navigation Boulevard.”

  “I’ve already been there,” Barone said.

  He called Seraphine from a phone box on Scott Street.

  “Guidry didn’t go for Dolly Carmichael,” Barone said. “He’s smart.”

  “That’s all right, mon cher,” Seraphine said. “I’ve got good news. You have a long drive ahead of you.”

  “Where am I going?” Barone said.

  “Goodnight, Texas.”

  “What’s the good news?”

  “What once was lost,” she said, “has now been found.”

  11

  The patrol car parked behind Guidry. Out climbed an older cop in a cowboy hat. Sheriff of Godforsaken, Texas. He moved stiffly, like he’d just swung down off a horse. Fred, the deputy from the diner, took the other side of Guidry’s car, a shotgun cradled in his arms.

  Guidry rolled down his window. “Good evening, Sheriff.”

  The sheriff bent and peered in. He had a graying handlebar mustache that hid most of his mouth and some of his chin. He looked over at the deputy. “I believe you might be right on the money about this, Fred.”

  “Hello there, Fred.” Guidry waved to the deputy, who lifted a hand off the stock of the shotgun to wave back but then decided to scratch his nose instead. “How can I help you, Sheriff? Was I driving too fast?”

  Guidry prayed for a routine shakedown. City slicker comes through town—hook him, empty his wallet, send him on his way. But if the sheriff worked for a man who worked for a man who worked for Carlos, if the word had gone out to keep an eye out for this particular city slicker …

  “Are you it?” the sheriff asked Guidry.

  “Am I what?”

  “The thorn in the flesh from Proverbs. The fly in the ointment. The fella causing all the fuss.”

  Exactly the words Guidry didn’t want to hear. But he kept smiling. Desperately, one might say.

  “My name’s Bobby Joe Hunt,” he said. “I sell used cars in Houston. I wish you’d tell me what this is about, Sheriff.”

  “Get out of the car, son,” the sheriff said. “Hands where I can see ’em.”

  “Sure.”

  “Billfold. Toss it here.” The sheriff flipped through Guidry’s wallet. “Where’s your driving license?”

  Torn to bits and buried under a pile of garbage in a metal can behind the motel in Houston.

  “It’s not in there?” Guidry said. “Should be. And a business card. My name’s Bobby Joe Hunt. Like I said, I’m from Houston, and I’m on the way to Amarillo for a car auction. Just ask Fred over there.”

  The sheriff flicked the business card away and drew the pistol from his holster. “Turn around,” he told Guidry. “Hands behind your back.”

  Guidry was livid that his end had come this quickly. Less than twenty-four hours of freedom, the best he’d been able to do. And livid that his end would come this way, in this place—at the hands of a crooked hick-town sheriff, on the bare brown plains of the Texas panhandle, a place so ugly that not even a glorious sunset could redeem it.

  The sheriff cuffed him and patted him down. “Fred,” he said to the deputy. “Take his car and follow us back to the station.”

  The sheriff whistled as he drove. Guidry didn’t recognize the tune. He could try kicking the seat in front of him. Kick and hope that the sheriff swerved off the road. But then what? Even if the sheriff split his head open and Guidry didn’t split his, Guidry would still be cuffed and trapped. The deputy was right behind them, a hundred feet back, with the shotgun.

  “I believe it’s Corinthians, Sheriff, not Proverbs,” Guidry said. “The thorn in Paul’s side you’ve referred to.”

  “I believe you’re correct,” the sheriff said.

  “If memory serves, the thorn was a messenger of Satan, sent to torment Paul when he became too conceited.”

  The sheriff whistled and drove.

  “You’ve got the wrong man, Sheriff,” Guidry said.

  “If that turns out to be the case,” the sheriff said, “you’ll have my sincere apology and a hearty handshake.”

  The police station in Goodnight was just one room. Fake wood paneling and a linoleum floor the color of speckled green seasick. On the wall behind the desk hung a dozen framed paint-by-number paintings. Through the bars of the jail cell, Guidry could see them all. A lighthouse, a covered bridge in autumn, mallards on a pond. Two different versions of the Last Supper, one with the Holy Ghost hovering behind Jesus and one without.

  “I have to go across the street and make a telephone call, Deputy,” the sheriff said. “Keep the Comanches at bay.”

  “Yessir,” the deputy said.

  How long did Guidry have left? The sheriff would call whoever he reported to in Dallas. The news about Guidry would hop from lily pad to lily pad, all the way back to Seraphine in New Orleans. As soon as she found out that he was in Goodnight, she’d send someone tout de suite.

  “Fred,” Guidry said.

  Nothing.

  Seraphine might have someone in Dallas. But probably her cleanup hitter was in Houston right now. Eight hours away. What time was it? Seven-thirty. Suppose Seraphine got the word about Guidry at 10:00 p.m.

  Six o’clock tomorrow morning. The deadline that Guidry was looking at. Tick, tock.

  “Annabelle over at the diner,” he told the deputy, “I think she’s sweet on you. Why else would she badger you like that?”

  Nothing.

  “Who were you supposed to be on the lookout for, Fred? A big bad Mafia gangster from the city? I’m not even Italian, my hand to God. I’m French Cajun with a little Irish, a country boy like you, from Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Speck of a town called St. Amant. I bet you’ve never heard of it. I played shortstop for my high-schoo
l team.”

  Stretch the truth a little. Guidry had been friends with the shortstop on the high-school team.

  “What else did the sheriff tell you, Fred?” Guidry said. “That I’m a wanted fugitive? That some boys from the FBI are going to come out here and haul me in?”

  The deputy stood and walked over to the cooler and filled a tiny pleated paper cup with water. He drank the water, crumpled the cup in his fist, and then sat back down.

  “Ask yourself a question, Fred. Why did the sheriff go across the street to make a call when there’s a telephone right there on the desk in front of you? Why didn’t he want you to hear what he had to say?”

  The deputy put his feet up on the desk and yawned.

  “I’m a federal witness, Fred,” Guidry said. “It’s the mob that wants me dead. The boys who show up here in a few hours won’t be from the FBI. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just wait and see.”

  “You know what?” the deputy said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t care she’s sweet on me or not,” the deputy said. “I wouldn’t walk across the street to stick my dick in Annabelle Ferguson.”

  A few minutes later, the sheriff returned from making the call. He sent the deputy home for the weekend, put a pot of coffee on to brew, and settled in behind the desk. Guidry surveyed his cell. A window, high up and not much more than a slot. He wouldn’t be able to squeeze through it, even if somehow he managed to pry off the rusty wire mesh bolted to the plaster.

  “I won’t insult your intelligence, Sheriff,” he said.

  “Appreciate it.”

  The sheriff had lined up a dozen miniature screw-top paint pots in front of him. He unscrewed a pot and dipped his brush.

  “I don’t envy you,” Guidry said. “You’re in a fix, aren’t you?”

  The sheriff’s gray handlebar mustache twitched with amusement, but he didn’t look up from his painting. “Am I.”

  “You know this is about what happened to Kennedy.”

  Still the sheriff didn’t look up, but for a moment his hand with the brush in it stopped moving. “I don’t know anything of the sort.”

  “You know that Oswald couldn’t make a shot like that,” Guidry said. “Not one regular Joe in a thousand could make a shot like that. Six floors up, a moving target, trees in the way. Pow-pow, bull’s-eye two times? You’d need a professional for the job.”