I fought the perverse urge to say something about the man I had held in my arms that morning. . . . Then I didn't fight it anymore. "Sorry, Hannah. I guess I was thinking about the way your husband died."
The grin faded, but her eyes still held me. "Like hell you were. You weren't thinking of Jimmy no more than I was." She let that settle before adding, "And I know what I was thinking about." Then she stretched, fists together, hands over head, breasts arched high, before favoring me with a softer look, the vaguest trace of a smile. "You bite back, don't you, Ford? Go right for that soft vein in the throat."
She waited; I remained silent.
"Mind if I call you Ford? It's a simple, no-bullshit name. Seems to fit."
I stared back; wasn't surprised when she refused to look away. Said, after a long silence, "You can call me anything you want." Then the stubborn set of her jaw, the cattish expression on her face somehow struck me as funny, and I began to laugh . . . then we were both laughing. Hers was a heavy, guileless guffaw, not at all like the bell note sounds she made when amused.
Wiping at her eyes, she said, "Truce? I'll put the knife away if you will."
"Only because I'm so outclassed."
"A gentleman about it. Damn!" She sat up straighter in the beanbag chair, getting serious. "See, the thing you don't know about that bastard Jimmy is—"
"Sorry I took so long." The bathroom door swung open, emitting a steamy effluvium. Tomlinson came out wearing a red T-shirt and green denim pants that were bunched tight at his waist with a leather belt, everything very baggy but a couple of sizes too short. His blond hair was fluffed and combed smooth, like a shampoo commercial. I'd never seen his hair so carefully arranged. Even had it parted in the middle. He said, "You live on a boat, man . . . shower out of a rubber bag, you come to appreciate the finer things in life."
Hannah was using her hand as a fan. "Whew, you smell like the perfume counter at Eckerd's."
"You've got a nice selection in there. Hope you don't mind."
"See? That's Jimmy's stuff I never got around to throwing out." To Tomlinson, she said, "Set yourself down. I was about to tell Ford about Jimmy Darroux."
Tomlinson's expression described compassion. "A terrible thing. Awful. He was a good spirit."
Hannah said, "Jimmy was an asshole."
Tomlinson shrugged. "The man had his problems. That much even I could tell."
Chapter 5
Hannah had moved to the rocker. The topic seemed to require the added dignity of elevation. First off, she wanted to know what Jimmy had said to us, why we'd run clear up the bay after sunset on a falling tide. Tomlinson talked, then I talked. Then Tomlinson talked some more. She had a good way of listening, the natural-born-executive's talent for nodding at the appropriate time, asking just the right question to lever more detail, letting you feel the full force of her attention as she followed along. She didn't want to be spared anything. She wanted it all.
When we had finished, she sat quietly for a while. In the big rocker, she was the portrait of an anachronism, the pioneer woman at peace. She looked solid. Maternal. But through the open bedroom door, I could see the emblems of a woman who had yet to abandon all adolescent interests: big poster of a country music star tacked to her wall; a banner from Disney World; lazy, whirling ceiling fan with some kind of corsage dangling from the middle. After a time, she said, "Jimmy said he could see Jesus?"
"That's right. He was in shock, I guess."
"Jimmy finally met up with Jesus—you'd have to know him to understand just how funny that is. Jimmy? If the medical examiner hadn't told me himself on the phone, I'd think somebody else burnt up. But they called me and I told em how to get the dental records. He'd gone for some fillings just last month. Dr. Gear."
One of Tomlinson's great gifts is his ability to empathize. "If you're feeling bitterness, it's understandable," he said. "Your husband left violently, without explanation. So it's natural. Don't feel guilty, just let it out."
"Guilty? I don't feel guilty one bit. Bitter, sure. But not guilty. You never knew the guy—"
"His last words were about you, Hannah. Looking out for your welfare. I was there, holding his hand. I mean—seriously—the guy obviously cared deeply."
She sat up a little straighter, spread her fingers wide to brush the hair out of her face. "That's another thing that doesn't make sense. Why would Jimmy say that? What'd he say? 'Take care of Hannah for me'? Is that what he said?"
"His exact words."
"See, that wasn't like him. Know what I think, Tomlinson? I think— this may sound crazy—but I think you and Ford were sent to me for a reason."
"Of course we were. Except for Doc, a person would have to be a dope to doubt it."
"No, that's not what I mean. Not just to comfort me, but something else. Bigger, you know? It's this feeling I've got."
"Could be, Hannah. Wouldn't be the first time in my life."
"You really believe it's possible. What I'm saying?"
"I'm just a tool. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff God's gotten me into."
Hannah leaned forward slightly, ready to share. "Then you'll understand this. What I think is, that was Jimmy's body there on the table, and it was Jimmy's voice you heard . . . but those weren't Jimmy's words. Couldn't have been."
"Yeah? You think so?"
"I really do. It's just an idea. No way to prove it—"
"He . . . was a bad person?"
"Yes, he was." Her voice dropped a note or two—a confessional tone—making her point. "Jimmy was selfish as a three-year-old. And lazy. Trust me, if it wasn't for his pecker, he'd've never even learned to drive. Mean, too. Just plain, downright mean. Jimmy didn't give a damn about me."
"There was a darkness in him. I even told Doc that."
"There you go. But do you see what I'm getting at?"
Tomlinson held his hands out, palms up. "No, but I love the concept."
Hannah said, "What it could be—I'm just thinking out loud—but it could be that something, some force, spoke through him. Wanted us three to meet. 'Take care of Hannah for me.' Jimmy wouldn't say that. The words just came through his mouth, see? When I first saw you on the doorstep, I gave you a hard time, but what I was feeling was—"
"You don't even have to say it." Tomlinson was nodding his head, way ahead of her. "Like I already knew you. That's the way I felt. Saw you standing in the door—"
"Exactly."
"That's just the way it happens. I knew this was your house."
"You took your clothes off, no questions asked!"
He was chuckling along with her, his hair showing a lot of sheen and bounce. "Yeah . . . well ... I've done that for strangers many a time. But, with you, I couldn't even talk. I mean, wham. Like, there you were."
"This doesn't sound weird to you?"
Tomlinson made a fluttering noise with his lips. "Let me give you some words to live by: Weirdness only seems weird if you fight it. Believe me, I know about these things."
I sat there listening, trying to make sense of it. . . then abandoned any hope of trying to reassemble their exchange into rational conversation. What puzzled me most of all, though, was this troubling reality: No matter what Hannah Smith said, no matter what ridiculous opinion she fronted, I still found myself inexorably attracted to her.
Tomlinson was saying, "As a phenomenon, it's not that uncommon. Some person, dead or alive, serves as the medium for a larger voice. The power speaks through them. Some spirit who has left this world and gone to another. Or some sentient consciousness that has no other means to verbalize .. . Hey . . . wait. . . a . . . minute! I'm getting something here—"
Hannah said, "A larger voice," pondering it.
"This morning, when Doc and I were using his telescope, I was expecting a sign. This deep meditation I've been into, I've made daily contact with a very powerful consciousness—"
She interrupted him. "That's just what I want to learn. Meditation. Can you teach me?"
"It
would be an honor. But listen to what I'm saying. I've been locking onto these signals, these little islands of. . . divinity. I mean, I really knew I was going to receive some sign from them." He looked at me. "What did I tell you this morning, Doc? What did I say?"
It startled me for a moment, being included in the conversation. "You said something about ocular confirmation," I said. "That's what you told me."
"My very words. Ocular confirmation. You understand, Hannah? I was looking for a light, some kind of signal, way out in space. So what do they give me instead? A fucking explosion that knocks me right off my pins. I'm so damn dumb! Typical unenlightened earthling. I keep forgetting that time and distance mean absolutely nothing."
"Then Jimmy spoke—"
Tomlinson's head was swinging up and down; already knew the direction she was headed. "He spoke, but it could have been this power, this consciousness speaking through him. Jimmy was going to be at our marina anyway. He was going to be carrying the gas or bomb, whatever the hell it was. Free will—never underestimate it. He had his own plans. Blow up boats, burn the marina. Whatever. Destructive behavior, a very negative gig. Not that it mattered, because it was his time to pass on, so they just selected him."
Hannah stood, touched her fingers to my shoulder—a brief conduit of heat—then placed her hand on Tomlinson's shoulder. "Right or wrong, I feel like something brought you here. Things like this don't happen by accident."
"Exactly."
"Ford said you write books."
"Several. I have a small but enlightened following. Some truly twisted souls, as well, but that goes with the territory. They send me letters . . . strange clippings . . . interesting herbs . . . once, a dried bat. They're devoted people, my readers."
"I want to write a book. Maybe you could help me."
Tomlinson smiled at her. Said, "I'm here for a reason."
It was more than an hour later. Hannah had walked us down and introduced us to Arlis Futch. When she told him I could dock my boat there "any damn time he wants," I was surprised that Futch simply smiled meekly, as if arguing was futile. "Whatever you want, Hannah. If they're friends 'ayours."
We had eaten, and now were sitting on the porch, in darkness, looking at the bay through a framework of palm fronds. The January sea breeze was chilly, blustery; blew the mosquitoes away. I was worried about my boat. The tide was still falling. If I wanted to run back to Dinkin's Bay across the flats, we'd have to leave soon.
Yet I didn't want to leave. Hannah sat between us, kicked back in her chair, bare feet on the railing. Every now and then she'd reach over and squeeze my wrist to amplify what she was saying, or give me a rough shove after the punch line of some joke. Most people are reluctant to violate the perimeter of space that defines the boundary of another person's body. But she was a toucher, a patter, a nudger. Her effective way of bonding, of breaching the chasm.
"I expect you wonder why I married him. A creep like Jimmy. If he was so bad."
"It doesn't make a lot of sense, I have to admit."
"Everybody makes mistakes, man. Kids are young, they think getting married's a way to change their lives."
"Nope, Ford's right. It didn't make sense, doesn't make sense, never made sense." She sat quietly, thinking it over, then began to tell us how it was. "I first met Jimmy . . . yeah, just a little less then seven years ago. Some girlfriends and I loaded up a car, this big green Bonneville convertible had a dented-in front fender. So old we had to play eight-track tapes—The Doors, Steppenwolf, Cream, that stuff, and it sounded great. Just loaded it up and headed for New Orleans. Had the top down, wine coolers in an Igloo, smoking cigarettes, acting wild. I was. . . eighteen?" She touched a long finger to her lips, thoughtful. "Yeah, eighteen. All of us. Lissa Kilmer and Mary Lou Weeks. We'd just graduated high school from Cedar Key, fishermen's daughters, and we thought, what the hell, let's get out and see the world. Lissa had a brother who crewed the shrimp boats outta Morgan City, right there near New Orleans, and that's how I met Jimmy. Jimmy was ... different. I told you I liked people who were different?"
"Know what? I could tell that about you. The moment I walked in here, the whole aura of this place."
For just a moment, she rewarded Tomlinson with her full attention, a kindred acknowledgment—they were still on the same cerebral frequency.
Jimmy was twenty-some years older than me, more than forty. I liked that. Liked the way he looked, the way he smelled. Kind'a spicy with some sour mixed in. He was a Creole, what they call a mulatto. Not real black but butterscotch-colored. He had these long arms, real strong, and, truth is, he was 'bout the first man I ever met that wasn't scared of me. Jimmy didn't yap at my heels trying to please me, didn't slobber from the tongue because he wanted in my pants so bad. I'm not bragging—no reason to, it's such a pain in the butt—but nearly every man I've dated ends up hounding me till I can't stand it. It's like a sickness."
I thought: Understandable.
"But Jimmy wasn't that way," Hannah said. "Nope, with him everything was smooth and easy. If I wanted it, fine; if I didn't there were plenty of other women. First time, we were on the bow of a shrimp boat, the Baffin Bay Bleu out of Corpus Christi—can you believe I remember the name of it? It was night, and he stripped my clothes off so quick we just did it right there on that wet deck. Bruised myself, I pounded those boards so hard, humping away like dogs in the diesel fumes. Spray coming over the bow, both of us bareass-naked, headed out Pontchartrain Cut, with the whole crew watching from the pilothouse for all I knew. I didn't care. Didn't care about anything but what we were doin' and what we kept doing. Every spare minute, grabbing each other anytime we wanted, squeezing into every little cubbyhole on the boat, for three days, Pontchartrain to Morgan City, out in the Gulf. It was like I was drunk and feverish both. That's the way it was with Jimmy at first."
I thought: Why is she telling us this?
Hannah said, "He told me later he'd put a spell on me. Like he was joking. When I got to know about him, I wasn't so sure." She exchanged a glance with Tomlinson, confirming that he understood. Then looked at me to see how I was reacting to the story . . . before explaining patiently, "I say things the way they are. The truth doesn't embarrass because I've told no lies to be ashamed of. You knew Jimmy, you wouldn't think the business about spells was so silly. I said he was a Creole? He spoke the language better than he spoke English. His people were all swamp people. Coon Asses, he called them, but that's because he liked to think he was better. He grew up in a place called Calcasieu Marsh, this village of shacks up on stilts. He took me there, showing me around, and these people had Catholic stuff on the walls—plaster crucifixes, Virgin Marys—but they had another religion, too. The families from way, way back did. And the Darrouxs had been there forever."
"Obeah?" Tomlinson offered. "The slaves, they integrated it into Christian ceremonies. Blood sacrifices, occult rituals. Scares people shitless, plus plenty of social outings—a first-rate theology, you ask me."
Hannah shook her head. "Jimmy never called it that. He just outright called it voodoo. His mama was like the main witch lady. He showed me all her stuff, which really pissed her off. Not that she didn't take to me. But she didn't like Jimmy, and Jimmy hated his family. So, what did he care?"
Tomlinson was warming to the topic, enjoying the opportunity to be talking about something that interested her. "The woman, Darroux's mother, did she have an altar in her home? Some kind of a carved head with a cigar, or maybe a cigarette, sticking out its mouth?"
"Yeah ... a cigar, and some beads on this blue velvet tablecloth. Feathers. . . and a shot glass full of liquor. The liquor, it was always there. I remember, because Jimmy, he'd walk past and drink it, then laugh like crazy. Rum. I could smell it."
Tomlinson winced. "Oh man, no wonder he and his mother didn't get along." He turned to me to clarify—"That's like a Baptist stealing from the collection plate"—before asking Hannah, "You happen to notice any small brown bottles around? About this tall?" He held
his thumb and forefinger a few inches apart. "Rows of them, probably hidden out of sight, but not anywhere close to the altar. And a Bible nearby?"
Hannah stared at him a moment, impressed—or maybe uneasy—but a little impatient, too. "I don't remember. What I meant was—" She stood up suddenly, went into the house and returned with the pitcher of tea. "What I meant was, it was like being under a spell. Not that I really was. By the time Lissa and Mary Lou and me got back to Cedar Key, I didn't much feel one way or the other about him. Just sort of burnt itself out. It was fun, but that's about it. He'd telephone sometimes, always late at night and Pretty drunk, which really pissed off my daddy. Next day he'd be roaring, She's got Negroes callin' her! Negroes!' " She was laughing as she finished filling my glas^'T'd heard through Lissa that he got into trouble down in Mexico. Campeche, I think. For buying cocaine or selling cocaine. Some °f the shrimpers, they were into that.
"Then, about two years ago, he shows up here. He'd been mullet fishing in Texas, but the nets got banned there, so he and about a jillion others naturally come to Florida to steal our fish. I was working my own boat by then, rentin' this place, but I wanted to buy. My daddy'd just died, and, in his will, he left me a little more than ten thousand dollars. But there was a . . . what'a you call it? ... a stipulation. I had to be married and settled down for at least two years before I could touch the money. That's what the lawyer told me: Married and settled down." She chuckled softly. "Even from the grave, Daddy was still scared of me. Of what I'd do." She shrugged, a display of indifference.
Tomlinson said, "So you decided to marry Jimmy"
"That's right—two years ago come May. I coulda married about any man on the island, but guess it was the devil in me that made me choose him. Just meanness. What did I care who my husband was? I wasn't ever going to get married, and I'll never get married again. Maybe I was tryin' to show how independent I am, marrying somebody Jimmy's color—but island people are a lot more accepting than you'd think. If Jimmy'd been worth a damn, they'd have taken him right in. But he kept a dirty boat. He'd cut in on somebody else about to strike fish. When he wasn't drunk, he was high on crack. That man purely loved the rock."
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