by Gregory Ashe
Somers glanced at Hazard.
Hazard pushed Somers’s hand away. “You know my parents?”
“I knew your parents,” Lady Mabbe said, drawing herself up in a show of indignant anger, her breasts swaying pendulously. “And I know they didn’t raise no door-crashing, boot-stomping, gun-swinging thug to burst in on a lady’s chamber. Or,” she added after a moment’s thought, “to go around saying queen to decent women like he’s creamed corn, like he’s never spread his legs for the first fancy boy to come along.”
This time, Somers let out an actual groan.
“Now,” Lady Mabbe said, folding her hands like a girl about to recite a poem. “You boys polish your boots and straighten your jackets. First, you can kneel—John-Henry, you should know better—and then, when I’ve heard your petition, I may be considerate enough to approach the dais. The royal audience is a boon that is not bestowed on many.” She wagged a finger at them, her drawl stretching out the words. “You boys have a lot to scraping and licking to do before this old cat’s going to cast the royal eye upon you with favor.”
“Cast the royal eye?” Hazard growled, glaring at Somers. “What the hell is this?”
“Just play along,” Somers said.
“You want me to kneel down to this—to this—”
“Hazard, listen to me, she’s pulling your chain. If we play along—”
“No,” Hazard said. “You listen to me.” He crossed the room and snatched up a black rayon blouse, which he thrust at the old woman. “I’m done with whatever game this is. No kneeling. No licking. No royal eye, whatever the hell that is. Put that on and close up your front window. No, don’t speak. Shut your mouth. We’re going down to the station, where you’re going to answer some questions.”
“Hazard,” Somers said.
“What did you say to me?” Lady Mabbe said, her voice rising an octave, her nails curling towards her palms. Very long nails, Hazard noticed. Very sharp-looking nails. “You come into my chamber, Frank and Aileen’s son, and you say queen and you say it straight to my face, no regard, no respect, nothing but that gun to make you a man, and you touch the royal robes like you’re pulling panties off the rack at Piggly-Wiggly and—”
“Just a sec, Lady,” Somers said. “Hazard, can I talk to you? Out in the hall?”
“What screwed up joke is this?” Hazard said, glancing from Lady Mabbe to Somers. “You go along with this? You let her talk to you like you’re—”
“Like you’re exactly what you are,” Lady Mabbe screeched. “Nothing but a hungry hound, ready to spread—”
“That’s enough,” Somers said, putting steel into his voice. “Hazard, out in the hall? Right now?”
Shaking his head, Hazard followed his partner out into the hall. As soon as Somers had shut the door, Lady Mabbe burst into a rant—it sounded, even through the wood, like a discourse on all the injustices ever perpetrated against her dignity.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Hazard said. “That’s your idea? To talk to some batshit old lady who thinks she’s the—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—queen of Smithfield.”
Somers sighed. “I asked you not to—”
“Oh shut up, Somers. Queen hasn’t meant whore since, God, I don’t know, Shakespeare. She read it in a book somewhere and she’s fixated on it, but it doesn’t mean anything like that now. Christ, she called you by your first name. And we’re just as crazy as she is, playing her games when we should be out looking for someone who actually knows something. Not—not—”
Hazard ran out of words then, but he wanted to say more; he could feel it steaming under the surface.
For his part, Somers looked like he was trying really, really hard to think of something. Probably, Hazard thought, a way to get Hazard out of the way.
“Listen, I got a call while we were coming in here. From the station. Why don’t you take a minute, cool down, and check in? See what they want.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not patronizing you,” Somers said, flashing that smile again. “But you and Lady Mabbe didn’t exactly hit it off. And I know you don’t think I’m very good at my job, but you should trust me on this: Lady Mabbe knows everything that goes down in Smithfield.”
An uncomfortable moment of silence followed, and Hazard said, “I never said you weren’t—”
“I know, man. It’s ok. It’s all over your face. But just—things are different, right? This is a small town. We have to live with these people, rub elbows, you know? It’s not big enough to do the anonymous tough cop routine, right?”
“So we’re not tough?”
“Oh, we’re tough as fucking nails. We just have to be good old boys about it.” And there it was again, that smile like a hundred thousand dollars.
“This is ridiculous,” Hazard said again, although he couldn’t muster the same force as earlier. Somers made a good point, even if Hazard didn’t want to admit it. “Listen, I can go in there, I can get what we need—”
“Jesus God no.” Somers took a breath. “I mean, no, let me handle this. Ok?”
Hazard managed a nod.
“You call and check in?”
“I don’t need you coming up with busywork—”
“Come on, man. Somebody’s got to call.”
“Fine,” Hazard snapped.
Somers grinned at him, cocked his head toward the stairs, and waited until Hazard took a few steps away before slipping back into Lady Mabbe’s “chambers.”
Hazard tromped down the hall, past the something-the-size-of-a-cat corpse, past the half-burned wedding dress, until he stood at the top of the stairs. He took a deep breath and realized his hand was hurting. Aching, really, was a better word—the tape was peeling, and Hazard found himself thinking about how stupid he’d been the night before.
It happened every time he opened his mouth: things went sideways. He could think the words, and they’d sound just fine in his head, but as soon as he started talking everything seemed to go wrong. Like it had with Somers last night. Like it had with Cravens this morning. Like it had right now with Lady Mabbe. Best practice, he reminded himself, was to keep his fat mouth shut about everything that wasn’t work.
The phone rang twice before someone picked up at the station. On the other end of the line came a voice with all the strength and resilience of talcum powder. “Wahredua PD,” the man said. “Officer Murray speaking. How can I help you?”
“This is Detective Hazard. Detective Somerset told me he’d received a call from the station. He asked me to check in for any messages.”
From the other end came a slobbery, chewing sound, and then that powdery voice again. “You’re that new detective.”
“That’s right. Are there any messages, because I need to—”
“Hazard. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Hazard gritted his teeth. “Listen, I’ve got my partner in the other room, and I—”
“Now, I remember back in 1946 when a Hazard moved into these parts. Hold on. Was it 1946? Or was it 1947?”
“I don’t know. Officer Murray, if you could—”
“It was 1946,” Murray interrupted with dusty triumph. “And I remember because that was the year Georgia Devereaux grew a tomato the size of a tire, and they put it at the Devereaux Ford dealership, right so it covered up one of the tires of a show car, and one of the girls on the floor wrote ‘46 and Fabulous.’” Murray’s voice dissolved, and when it came back, it was muddled. “Or was it ‘47 and Fabulous?’”
“The messages, old man. I don’t have time to listen to you ramble on about tomatoes and car tires and showgirls and God only knows what else. Somebody called for Somers. What the hell did they want?”
A long silence followed, and when it came back, Murray’s voice was huffy. “Never had another cop talk to me like that. Not in forty-five years on the force. Not once.”
“Do you have a message for me or don’t you?”
&
nbsp; “All right, all right. Not once, mind you. Not even Triple Jimmy, and he had a temper like the devil with the three-week itch. Not even—”
“The message,” Hazard managed in a strangled tone.
“All right then. Fellow of the name Flores. Called about ten times for that new detective. The one with Somerset. I’ve got his name here. Let me see.”
Hazard disconnected the call. It was either disconnect the call or let himself slide, irrevocably, into insanity because of the old man. Then, shoving the phone into the pocket, he processed what Murray had just told him. Not the nonsensical tomato story, but the message: Nico Flores had been calling, trying to reach Hazard. Hazard felt a tingle along his backbone. It might be a lead. It might be—
—a date, and Jesus, what would Billy say, what did it matter, he needed to call Billy—
—a break in the case. Yeah, that was it. Flores had information. Something big had happened with the vandalism case, that was it. But that didn’t explain the flurry of butterflies in Hazard’s stomach.
Still turning over the message in his head, Hazard made his way back to Lady Mabbe’s room. As he pushed open the door, he heard laughter. Bright, genuine, warm laughter. It was Somers. And Lady Mabbe was laughing too, laughing with an unreserved openness that made Hazard hesitate, stop, and listen from behind the door.
“And when that young man had finished,” Lady Mabbe was saying, “I told him either he had to put the pants on or the pig did, but I wasn’t getting out of bed until everyone was decent.”
Somers burst into another roar of laughter; he sounded so . . . comfortable. There was none of the restraint that marked how he spoke to Hazard. None of the unspoken, underlying caution, like a man petting a wild dog. This was Somers at his best, Hazard realized. This was what Somers did well: he was good with people.
“You really are a terrible old woman,” Somers said, still chortling between breaths. “What would my mother say if she knew I was talking to you?”
“Your mother,” Lady Mabbe said with what sounded like mock-irritation, “is on too many church committees and ladies’ benefits and charity boards. It’s stuffed her and starched her so she doesn’t bend an inch. I remember when she used to be fun.”
“Oh yeah? I’d like to hear about that. Or maybe I wouldn’t, come to think of it.”
“It’s none of your business,” Lady Mabbe said primly. Then, her voice dropping into seriousness, she said, “You’re here about that fire, aren’t you? You better tell me straight, John-Henry.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lady Mabbe let out a heavy breath. “I seen the whole thing, my golden boy. I seen it with these two eyes.”
Somers spoke with audible excitement. “You really did? This isn’t something you heard from one of your friends? You were there?”
“Boy, if I say I was there, what do I mean?”
“You mean you were there.”
“Then that’s what I said, isn’t it?” Cloth rustled; Hazard had a horrifying mental vision of Lady Mabbe escaping from the rayon blouse again. “I don’t feel so well these days, John-Henry. The devil’s cast his spirit upon me. He’s got the touch, you know. Fire.”
“We can take you to the hospital.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve had enough allopathic medicine. You know that, that’s a hundred dollar word, isn’t it? Your bundle of big, dark, and brooding, he wouldn’t know that word, would he?”
“I don’t know. Hazard’s pretty smart.”
“Oh, he’s all books. You could flip through his head like the Encyclopedia Britannica and you’d find just as much goddamn sense. Not like you. You’re sunshine and sweet well water and you're a good mama’s boy.”
This time, Somers’s voice had a noticeable trace of ironic amusement. “That’s very sweet, Lady.”
“Oh I won’t tell anyone—it wouldn’t do, Lord, it wouldn’t do at all—but that’s what you are.”
“What about that fire?”
“That’s where the devil put his spirit upon me, you know? He was there. I saw him.”
“You saw? You saw who set the fire?”
“What did I tell you, boy, about what I say?”
“All right, all right. What time was this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what time it was?”
“Royalty,” Lady said with icy disdain, “don’t trot to the piper’s pipe, boy.”
“Can you give me an estimate? Early evening? Late?”
“Had to be after nine,” Lady said after a moment’s consideration. “The sun had gone down, and I’d heard the college bells because I was on that side of Smithfield.”
“So, between nine and ten?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t hear those bells, not when I’m working. Could have been ten. Could have been eleven.”
Eleven-thirty, Hazard remembered, was McClinckie’s rough guess as to when the fire had started.
“And you saw this guy?” Somers asked. “Who was he?”
“Two of them. I was working Mary Beth’s corner. You know Mary Beth. Sweet as pie, but she’s got the preeclampsia, ankles the size of rottweilers, and now she’s in the hospital. So I took her corner, just until the baby comes along. Villanova and Brigade.”
“Jesus. That’s the same block. What’d you see?”
“The devil. He pulled up in a red pickup, you know, the dime-store size like you could put it on the shelf when you’re done with it. He and his fellow-servant, they got out, rolled a big old barrel right up to the door.”
“Slow down,” Somers said, excitement sharpening his voice. “The men. What’d they look like?”
“Bald, both of them. Heads shining like eggs. And on his sign. One on the neck. One on the arm.” From inside the room came a soft, scraping sound. The sound, Hazard realized, of fingers tracing a design on the Bordello’s old wood.
“Jesus,” was all Somers said. Hazard was itching to know what she’d drawn.
“All in blue,” Lady Mabbe said.
“Anything else? Height? Weight? Old? Young?”
“Oh, the size of a man who’s spent twenty years fighting the wind. The weight of a man who eats hate for supper and he always serves it cold.”
Somers groaned. “Do you have a conversion table? What’s the average weight of a man who eats cold hate for supper?”
“Don’t be snide to me, boy. Don’t talk to me like my head’s flopping open.”
“Sorry. It’s just—”
“Your size. Maybe a bit smaller. Maybe a bit bigger.”
“Ok. Fine. And age—”
“I don’t know. I was hunkered down inside that old brick building, the one that’s just about keeled over, right there on the corner. As soon as I saw the devil, as soon as I felt his power come upon me, I knew it wasn’t anyplace a woman with a brain ought to be.”
“Ok, ok. You saw them take the barrel up to the door, and then—”
“No. I said they rolled it up to the door. It was heavy; the two of them could barely get it into the trailer together. And then they came back out, and they stood there talking a moment, and . . .”
“And what?”
“And his power was upon me, John-Henry. I’ve never felt anything like it. That touch, all fire, and it started smoking inside me like the last drop of oil in a skillet, and then I sneezed.”
“They heard you?”
“Of course he heard me. It was his power, wasn’t it? His crooked fire stirring up inside me. He pointed right at me—never mind the distance and the dark, pointed at me like he could have touched me between the eyes—and he said something I couldn’t hear. The other one, his helper, took a step towards me, and the devil pulled out a big old gun. And that’s when I ran. They took a shot at me, too. That gun put a hole the size of Kansas in the bricks. And I just kept running before that devil could snatch me up and make me his bride.”
The last part, Hazard was pretty sure, she didn’t need to worry abou
t too much.
“All right,” Somers said, almost breathless with excitement. “All right, all right. That’s good, Lady. That’s real good.” The rustle of paper came from inside the room, and then Somers said, “You talk to anyone else that saw something, you remember anything else, you give me a call.”
“You’re a sweet boy, John-Henry, but cash money is just cash money, and you’re asking good people to put their necks under the devil’s heel. They won’t do it. Won’t nobody in Smithfield say a word about this, not ever.”
“Well, give me a chance. We’ll whip the devil and send him running.”
“This isn’t a thing to joke about.”
“I’m not joking.”
There was a pause, and when Lady Mabbe spoke, her voice had taken on a dangerous clarity. She sounded, to Hazard’s ears, almost sane. “You’re sunshine and sweet well water, John-Henry, but there’s a poison in you, and it’s working it’s way to your heart.”
“I’m not—”
“Does he know that?”
More silence. When Somers spoke, he sounded strangely uncomfortable. “He doesn’t need to know.”
“That poison, that’s a different kind of touch, but it’ll kill you as sure as fire.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“John-Henry?”
“Yes, Lady.”
“That one, your bundle of big, dark, and brooding?”
“His name’s Hazard. You know that.”
“He’s got the devil too. Wrestled him down and tied him up and thinks he can ride him into the next kingdom. But that’s wrong, all wrong, because you can’t ride a devil. A devil’s always riding you. You tell him that, will you?”
Somers’s breath exploded into the quiet. “Yeah, I’ll tell him. He’ll break my jaw, but I’ll tell him.”
“You take care, John-Henry. And tell your mother hello.”
“Goodbye, Lady.”
Footsteps echoed inside the room, and Hazard retreated towards the stairs. When Somers emerged, he looked as unruffled as ever—calm and cool, everywhere except his eyes. His eyes held a new, manic energy.
“Well?” Hazard said. No need to tell Somers he’d been eavesdropping; besides, Hazard wanted to see how Somers passed along the message about the devil. “Anything?”