by Rob Riggan
“I should have seen it, I suppose. Other stuff got in the way. Not that I expect he’ll ever vote for me or anything rash like that. And I don’t think you’ll see him drunk again either.” Dugan smiled, which seemed to please Eddie, too. “Trainor’s panting to be my driver,” he added. “You couldn’t do some more driving, could you?”
“Charlie, he’s going to get someone killed. Get rid of him.”
“I don’t have cause, Eddie. And I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
“That’s a fact,” Eddie said, “though if it makes you feel better, I don’t think it’s terminal. Wait a moment, I’ll change into my uniform.”
“Remember Ronnie Patton, the one supposedly shot up the Carvers’ car?” Dugan called from the kitchen. “We found out he left the state, may be out west.”
“Even if you find him, you think he’d testify?” Eddie said as he wandered out of the bedroom buttoning his shirt. “I’m going to need a pistol.”
“It’s in the glove compartment, along with your bullets and badge.”
“Even if Patton was willing, do you think Pemberton’s lawyers would let him within a thousand miles of here?”
Charlie shrugged. “Well, I don’t suppose I’d want to make a deal with a man like that, even if it did give me Pemberton.”
Eddie was halfway out the front door when he stopped. “Where’s my last paycheck?”
“Whole bunch of them in my drawer. You took some vacation time.”
“I understand ordinarily this would be none of my business, but Dru?”
“She’s sticking for the time being.” He handed Eddie the keys.
Part Six
XXXV
Dugan
Turner Mull and Bobby Lee Beauford, clothes torn, filthy and bleeding, were ushered into the jail by a small herd of deputies and city cops, the two looking like they might have been dragged all the way from Beauford’s Four Corner Market just west of Little Zion. Mull bawled like a calf as he was shoved through the iron door into the lockup, bawled about his rights, police harassment and conduct unbecoming an officer.
Dugan inhaled Mull’s sour sweat and bad liquor from across the room. They only look like they’ve been dragged, he thought. Thank God we’re not quite that barbaric, I suppose. But he only supposed, because there it was again, the underlying question, the irony that had come to permeate his thinking more and more since Rance’s Bottom, a skepticism about the value of many things, but primarily law enforcement, his enforcement. Objectively, he told himself, he still did know the value of his work, but now it seemed he had always to remind himself. This job demands absolutes, and I’m no longer sure there are any. Since Rance’s Bottom, he’d thought a lot about Pemberton, too, though it distressed him. But he could no longer deny the impact that long-ago shame under the tent had on events, and didn’t want to. As he watched the scene across the room, he reflected, This is all about Pemberton and me. It’s happening the way it is because he and I happened to meet, which in itself had nothing to do with fairness and justice. And irony—well, he’d always had a dose of it, had always understood he would have to act like more than he was in order to achieve what he had to do. That wasn’t true for just politics or law enforcement either.
He felt edgy.
Eddie wandered in from the courthouse in time to watch the prisoners disappear. “Trainor did that?” Dugan nodded just as Deputy J. B. Fisher emerged from the lockup, grinning. “Where is he?”
“Trainor?” Dugan said. “At the hospital getting a few stitches. He’ll be here soon. I offered him the night off, but he insists he’s fine, wants to book his prisoner.”
“What’s so special about booking Mull and Beauford?”
“Not them.” Dugan cocked his head toward the open door of his office.
Eddie looked in. “Who’s that?”
Dugan turned and gazed at the woman sitting primly in one of the chairs, her hands folded on her lap, or rather her thighs, since the skirt she was wearing reached maybe a third of the distance to her knees if she pulled hard, which she showed no inclination to do. She was wearing a pink-and-white-striped man’s shirt open three buttons. She was tanned, and her feet were lovely and petite in white sandals. Except for that skirt, or lack of it, and maybe that shirt unbuttoned as much as it was—even Dugan couldn’t keep his eyes off the deep, curving shadow beneath the swath of pure and full satin breast—and maybe that tan, and even the sandals somehow, not to mention a face that would provoke idiocy in any red-blooded male, she looked as proper and imperturbable, and maybe even as legal, as any granny at teatime. The idea of what she was charged with doing was utterly inconceivable, even to someone who might have actually seen her doing it. Like Trainor.
“Jesus,” Eddie said. Eddie wasn’t easily impressed.
“Yeah,” Dugan agreed as both men reluctantly dragged their eyes out of the office. “That’s Miss Peanut, or so the boys call her. It’s really Helen Marchesko. She’s from somewhere in New Jersey, been living in a trailer up near the reservoir. No way I could put her in the cage with Mull and Beauford.”
“What did she do?”
Dugan gave his driver a look of unalloyed disdain.
“You don’t say!” Eddie promptly checked his watch. “My, and only five-thirty.”
It was Friday, October 6, 1972, just a few weeks short of the election, and Dugan had already called Dru, telling her he wouldn’t be home for dinner. “This evening has a smell about it,” he’d told her, and she’d laughed, a most lovely and reassuring sound. There’d been little enough of that between them for much too long.
The fact was, nothing had gone really wrong the entire month of September, not since his return from Alabama and rehiring of Eddie. Tranquility had broken out. No one had said a thing about his unexplained absence, something he’d felt sure Pemberton would make hay out of. But he hadn’t heard a peep from Pemberton.
Dugan was back in stride, caught up on his paperwork, rested. He’d even been taking a little time to politick. True, some of the party officials had become hesitant about their commitment to him since Pemberton had been bound over, but they’d come around, for with his deepening skepticism had come a new quietness in his political style, which people seemed to like. It reassured them. He even felt the quietness in himself, and knew it came right out of Rance’s Bottom, all that had happened that night and after, particularly with Elmore. Dugan wished he could hold onto even more of that quietness.
But still, maybe it had just been too tranquil too long. Anyway, he was edgy.
“So what happened?” Eddie demanded in the midst of another surreptitious peek, reminding Dugan of someone stealing a look at a nudie photo with his wife beside him.
“Trainor was out on I-40, heard a call over the CB radio, and I quote, ‘Breaker, breaker, boys! It’s cocktail hour, and Peanut Butter’s easy spreading!’ ”
“This Peanut said that?” Eddie looked crushed.
“You know how Junior gets into chasing CB outlaws. Well, he hung his mike out the window and tromped on the gas, sounding like maybe he was driving something big, like a semi. We all heard him: ‘Hey there, Peanut Butter! This here’s Mustang Mike, and I sure like the taste of goobers. Where you at?’ ”
“Mustang Mike?”
Dugan was smiling. “He and J. B. found themselves up at that old CCC camp in Sentry, a trailer tucked down in the woods, a bunch of cars, maybe a dozen fellas lined up waiting their turn. J. B. told me he had a lot of trouble believing what Junior thought was going on, said there was too many cars down there. Looked like church. But Junior insisted, and sure enough, those old boys scattered like firecrackers when they saw uniforms walk into the clearing. Junior went right to the door, knocked real polite and heard one word in reply: ‘Yessss?’ J. B. said that word positively wriggled out of that trailer. Neither one thought a Yankee or anyone else could talk that way.”
Eddie took in Dugan with almost as much astonishment as he had the woman. “I believe you’re actual
ly enjoying this.”
Dugan glared at his deputy. “Absolutely not.”
Eddie turned away, grinning.
“Everything came out perfectly normal—it all went to hell. Junior charged her with running an establishment for the procurement of sex for money, then told her she’d have to accompany him down here. To which she said, ‘You’ll have to speak with Grady, Grady Snipes. It’s his trailer. Winthrop Reedy sold it to him.’ ”
“So Winn’s become some kind of character reference? My,” Eddie said.
“Sheriff?”
Hiding his annoyance at having his story interrupted, Dugan turned to greet a short, flaccid man in a light blue summer suit weaving across the room toward him, smiling with all his teeth. At a distance, the man looked dapper, but closer in Dugan knew he would see wrinkles and sweat stains on the clothes and white hair hanging too long over the collar. The hair of the white mustache was yellowish brown where his mouth held a cigarette. The lawyer extended a soft hand. “Grayson,” Dugan said.
“Charlie, I believe you have my client in the lockup.”
Dugan, knowing the client had to be Beauford, since Mull wouldn’t have a lawyer until the court appointed one, didn’t reply. Grayson had a way of pushing his patience.
“I’m talking about Bobby Lee,” the lawyer said when the silence grew awkward.
“Oh,” Dugan replied.
Grayson was brother to the banker and scion of one of the original settlers of Damascus. Big family, kids at the university, a regular down in Raleigh, where the Democrats still ruled, he’d been known to take payment from female clients on top of his desk. “Evening, Eddie,” the lawyer said.
“Mr. Grayson.”
“What are the charges, Charlie?”
“Assault on an officer and assault with a deadly weapon—namely, a twenty-eight-ounce can of Happy Duck Apple Juice.”
Grayson chuckled. “That’s rich! Of course, we’re talking his own recognizance.”
“No way, Arthur.”
“Now, sheriff, you know he’s not going anywhere.”
“Those are felonies, and I got a man having his head sewn up.”
“Well, my client’s going to want restitution for damage to his store!”
With a bullshit smile, Dugan looked down at the lawyer. “Arthur, when was the last time this county paid restitution for anything?”
“I’d like to confer with my client, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.” He called across the room, “J. B.! Take Mr. Grayson to Mr. Beauford.”
As Grayson was being guided toward the lockup, his gaze popped into Dugan’s office. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“You watch, they’ll claim bipartisan cooperation and run her for sheriff,” Dugan said.
“What have Mull and Beauford got to do with all this?” Eddie asked.
“Mull was standing outside Beauford’s market six sheets to the wind when Junior happened by on his way here with Miss Peanut. He allegedly gave Junior the finger.”
“Oh. A matter of honor. Well, things have been slow.”
“Don’t tempt fate, Eddie,” Dugan warned. “This is a Friday, and it’s been too quiet for too long.”
At that moment, Trainor strode into the room, a white bandage raked gloriously down from under his campaign hat across his forehead, a patch over one eye, aviator sunglasses covering both. “Mustang Mike!” Eddie declared under his breath. “Charlie, I have to agree. I suddenly got a real bad feeling about this.”
XXXVI
Winthrop
It was like kneeling before God, only it was wrong to think of God that way—worse than backsliding, it was blasphemy. But he could see himself kneeling and being overwhelmed, the sleek belly in front of him glistening with just the lightest moisture, a smell like sweet autumn overpowering him as he clasped the dark shapelessness he could feel but couldn’t see. Fingers gliding through his hair, over his ears, caused him to shudder as he plunged his face into a labial abyss and inhaled its entire essence into his being.
“Winthrop!” Lizzie shrieked, interrupting his reverie.
Winthrop Reedy stood on the brake pedal. Lizzie flew forward, grabbing the dashboard with both hands, blond ponytail flying. THUNK! A foot came down in the middle of the hood of their Firebird, followed by soiled pant legs and then the unshaven face of a man, his fingers spread over the hood, holding him in a tremulous crouch while he peered uncertainly through the windshield at Winthrop and his wife, his eyes bloodshot like a hound’s. In an instant, the man leaped off the car and charged across the remaining three lanes of South Charlotte Street, arms flailing. Stunned, Winthrop watched him vanish down the alley between Poteat’s Pawn & Loan and Beulah’s Salon of Beauty.
“What the hell?” Winthrop wondered aloud, then suddenly repeated with a bellow, like the delayed report of a cannon. Throwing the car door open, he stumbled to his feet and began to examine the damage.
Two hatless, uniformed Damascus police officers ran up. “Which way did he go, Winn?” one panted.
Winthrop thrust a finger toward the alley, and the officers took off, hands out to stop traffic. “What about my car?” Winthrop called.
“Wait for us!” the officer hollered back.
“Oh, Winthrop, just look at it!” Lizzie cried, standing in front of the car. Other cars had slowed, and their occupants were looking, too. It was their prize possession, the Firebird, black with orange and red flames outlined in yellow flowing back over the hood and along the sides. Right in the middle of the flames, just in front of the air scoop, was a big depression where the man’s foot had landed. “Just look!” Lizzie wailed, and he did, already knowing that what was worse by far than the dent were Lizzie’s features, all red and swelling with pent-up emotion. She never used to be like that. She was tough. She’d be pissed, maybe, but she wouldn’t cry over it.
But then nothing was like it used to be.
“Cub’ll straighten it out, honey,” Winn said. Just believe me, he prayed. He wanted the hell out of there.
“You okay, Winn?” someone called.
“Sure am, thank you now. Friday night’s starting early.” Yes, Friday night, October 6 of 1972. Where had the summer gone? Where had his life gone? Winthrop gave the fellow a wave, because he was good old Winthrop Reedy of Reedy’s Mobile Home Sales, do you a fair deal, only twenty-seven years old and a real comer. Once upon a time, two months or so ago, he would have relished this accidental opportunity—any damage was nothing compared to the collateral benefit he’d get out of telling the story and having others tell it. He’d loved such occasions. But now the last place he wanted to be was parading his ass in the middle of the main street of Damascus, North Carolina, under all those orange mercury-vapor street lamps, the whole world looking on. He felt all confused. “Lizzie, honey, let’s go down over the hill yonder, where those blue lights are flashing. I’m sure the boys’ll be back in a minute, and we’ll get this straightened out.” He put a hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away, her face contorted.
“Were you daydreaming again?”
He waved his hands downward to hush her. “Honey …”
“Don’t you honey me! Winthrop Reedy, I swear if I hadn’t shouted, you’d have squashed that man flat! Then where would we be? I don’t know you anymore.”
“You suppose we can talk about this someplace else than in the middle of the street?” He’d dropped his voice to almost a whisper, but he wanted to scream it at her. Still, he couldn’t keep some edge out, so now she was giving him the look, like she couldn’t trust him, like he might be about to slap her or worse, though he’d never touched her that way and never threatened to. He loved her. “Please,” he managed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lizzie sobbed. He put the car in gear, and they started moving toward the courthouse square at the end of the block. “Winthrop, you’ve been acting strange ever since this summer!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You
do!” She pounded her fist on the dash. The gesture struck him as comic, although he knew better than to laugh. “You haven’t shown any interest in anything, I swear. Not the business, not me, not our end-of-summer party. I had to whip you like an old mule to get you to light the barbecue.” She turned to him, her eyes full of tears, but tears of frustration and worry. Lizzie was not a complainer, he knew, nor one to cry at the drop of a hat like a lot of other girls. “Winn, are you feeling okay?” she asked, her voice softening.
“I’m fine, Lizzie.” He reached over for her hand, but he might as well have been holding a stone. She didn’t believe him. For a moment, he recalled the day they’d moved into their house, the house smelling newer than even a new car, Lizzie kicking off her shoes and laughing, whooping and racing about when she wasn’t hugging him. Her laughter had echoed through the empty rooms, rich, erotic, taunting him, her whereabouts shifting and elusive. He’d found himself wildly aroused but terrified, too, of this person he’d known most of his life, whom he’d gone to high school with, and junior college, and whom he’d at last married and stepped with into a new world full of promise. He’d wanted to restrain her and calm her down, until his world came back into focus and he could be sure she was still Lizzie.
They had unloaded their old stuff and some furniture Lizzie’s parents had given them, along with a baby grand piano. Then other trucks had started to arrive with the brand-new formal living-room suite, and the new kitchen suite, and the guest bedroom suite with the tall four-poster and canopy that would hold the frilly pillows and all Lizzie’s old dolls, and the iron grill for the archway leading from the front-door entry to the formal living room, with its stiff couch and chairs and floor-to-ceiling drapes at the tall front windows. The baby grand was in the living room, too. It looked slick, the music sheets always open on it. Even the bushes and pine trees in the yard looked right out of Southern Living, which was a couple of notches up from the Sears catalog, because the scenes beyond the windows didn’t look fake. Winthrop had been proud of Lizzie’s ability to make the house, and him, look right.