by Rod Davis
“Please help this young brother and fine young man find his peace and his path. Help us find him now, accept this from us.”
She reached into the bag again and took out what seemed to be a stuffed sock. It concealed a dazed, gray pigeon. I guess she traveled with all her spiritual supplies.
“Obatala, Elegba, Ochosi, Ogun. . .Obatala, Elegba, Oshosi, Ogun . . . Ashé, Ashé . . .”
With a deft motion she twisted off the bird’s head, dropped it to the grass, and let blood from the neck drip across the pebble and ashes, holding the body tight until the wings stopped flapping.
She pitched the body next to the head, chanted more African words, and finally tilted her head backwards, up to the sky. She remained like that a couple of minutes. Then looked at us with a strange smile on her face.
I didn’t know what to make of it, but she was in a trance.
I held Elle’s hand.
Barely aware that we were also present, Lenora pulled a half-pint of rum from her bag, took a swig, and then spewed it onto the cloth and its contents. She recited more incantations, and reached out to pick up the pebble. She touched it to her mouth, then held it tightly in a balled-up fist. She was silent. At one point, her body jolted and her head shook.
Then she opened her hands, dropped the pebble onto the cloth, and sat back on the grass, her legs crossed. She looked at Elle, then, briefly, at me. She took a long breath. She seemed to have returned to us. Then she reached forward to pick up the pebble and bits of ash. She put the bird’s body and head onto the cloth and wrapped it up. She put the pebble back inside the tissue and put it in her bag.
We stood. She handed me the cloth.
“This needs to be gone.”
I looked at Elle. She nodded that it was okay.
“Anywhere?”
“There’s a soybean field across that back alley. That will be fine.”
I climbed over the wire fence at the end of the yard, crossed a narrow lane, and hurled the bundle as far as I could into the field.
When I got back to the yard, Elle and Lenora were sitting in the chairs. Lenora had re-packed her bag. There was a finger-stripe of blood on her cheek.
I took the couch now, with Lenora and Elle in the guest room on the twin beds. That whole side of the house was shrouded in itself. I felt like I was out on the perimeter. I had brought my duffel out of the bedroom on the pretext I would need a change of clothes, but mostly I wanted the Colt nearby. Being in the front of the house meant I’d hear anything, and I knew I’d wake up. I should have slept there last night, too. Trey’s goons now wouldn’t want to harm us until we came up with the painting, which was almost certainly stashed in New Orleans, but thugs aren’t always rational and I had shot two of them.
I was already awake when the early strands of dawn danced through the house, just ahead of cries from the baby. I slipped into the guest shower, then put on my old jeans and a fresh blue polo shirt.
When I got to the kitchen Artula was holding Vanessa, talking and cooing. “Sorry if she woke you.”
I smiled. “I was already awake.”
“Coffee’s made.”
“You’re an early bird,” I said.
“I have a baby. I do this every day.”
She put Vanessa in a chair-swing and gave her a sippy-cup of milk. I poured myself a mug of the coffee and leaned against the stove. I watched the widow at the routine of her new life. What she hoped would be a life that wouldn’t be cut short.
“I guess we’ll be leaving today.”
When she finally looked at me, her eyes, as haunting as Elle’s, were glistening. “I know all about that.”
“Elle told you. About everything.” I must have looked annoyed.
“We’re family. We’re friends. You know.”
I went over to touch Vanessa’s cheek. It made her smile. “So you also know the best thing is to get back to New Orleans,” I said.
“That’s what Ellie thinks, too.”
“And we don’t need to be here, either. Baptist grapevine, Elle calls it. Trey will find out.”
“Trey Barnett is nothing to us here.”
“Well, he has some hard boys that might make that different.”
Artula studied her baby.
“I think we’ll be moving soon anyway ourselves. You know, the treatments and all. Lenora is going to read me today but I’m pretty sure what she’ll say.”
I heard a stirring from one of the bedrooms and a bathroom door shut.
“I know all that will work out. If you treat it in time and all.” We both knew I sounded like a Hallmark card.
“More coffee?”
“Thanks.”
She took my mug. “You take milk?”
“A little. I can get it.” I opened the fridge and took out a nearly empty gallon jug.
“Can’t believe I ran out. Go ahead and finish it.” She wrote “milk” on a magnetic note pad on the fridge door. “So, you know about everything about Byron and all?”
I poured the rest of the milk. “I know.”
“See, it works both ways. Ellie talking.”
“I guess.”
“She just needs people now. Same as me.”
I put the empty container in the trash.
“I had to tell her. I had to talk to someone I could trust, you know.”
“I understand.”
“People here are very old school, you might say. About all that AIDS and HIV.”
“You and Elle found each other again, though.”
“Something good out of all the bad.”
“Yeah.”
Elle came into the kitchen. She hugged Artula, a small peck on the lips for me, a kiss on the forehead for Vanessa.
That moment, that sliver of a moment, was the life some part of me wanted. It was not the one I expected to get.
Presently Lenora joined us, dressed for the day in a plum-colored pants suit. She was strikingly beautiful. The Meridian family wasn’t short of impressive genes. When Junior came in and asked for cereal, I volunteered to run down to the corner grocery for milk, and while I was at it a loaf of bread and maybe some bananas.
I was about halfway to Rosedale when I noticed the brown sedan following me.
14
No question it was a tail. For all I knew it had been out there all night waiting for us to leave. I got to the four-way stop in town and thought about zooming east to Cleveland just to see how far Trey’s boys would go—figuring that’s who it was—but I knew they would go as far as it took. I also considered playing wounded mother bird to their prowling cat to lure them away from Elle. But even if they were morons, they’d know enough to drop me and go back to her. The only play was to draw them out and find out who they were, what they knew. Or make a stand. And hope there wasn’t a back-up team. So far there hadn’t been but that was before Witch Dance. For the life of me, I couldn’t see how they had followed us. I’d been very careful, and Elle had been sure Rosedale would never cross Trey’s mind.
I made a quick right on the two-lane asphalt road leading toward the Great River Road State Park, alongside the Mississippi. I had passed it yesterday driving around. If things were going to get rough, and I had to face them down, doing so at the park wouldn’t endanger everyone back at the house. No matter what, I couldn’t go back to Artula’s running from thugs. Since I had foolishly left for the grocery without taking my cell, I didn’t have a way to call and warn them, either. What I did have were the shotgun and Glock. That and a hunch. I figured that an early weekday morning at a lesser-known park on the banks of the Mississippi Delta wouldn’t be that busy.
The sedan, a late model Plymouth, kept a discreet if irrelevant distance, since nobody was being fooled. From what I could tell through the rearview mirror there was only one guy in the car. White, it looked like, heavy-set. But it
was hard to see much more than a silhouette.
At the park entrance, I stopped to throw in a couple bucks admittance fee at the unattended honesty box. The tail did the same. I slowed; he slowed. I sped up; he sped up.
I drove on down a tree-lined asphalt two-lane, across a little bridge where an elderly black woman carrying a cane fishing pole and wearing a cone-shaped straw bonnet was making her way down to the edge of a pond. The road curved on through deeper woods until I was into a broad, open plain, some kind of day-use public recreation and picnic area. Nobody was around.
The big draw of the park was its wooden observation tower, whose height lured a trickle of tourists for the panoramic view of the river and the Delta. I drove by, thought about pulling up into the gravel parking lot and maybe bolt back out again. But I noticed that the narrow park lane we now were on continued past tree-lined fields and a grassy area downriver. I decided to keep going. He followed.
Just past the first curve I came to a recreation area with a softball field, but right away that led to a wide turning circle with beat-down grass tire trails, basically a dead-end. I had no choice but to make the circle. He could have blocked me. Instead, he kept his distance.
I was tired of games, the same way I felt back at Witch Dance. I drove very slowly back to the observation tower and parked under the big shade tree. I opened my door, stood for a moment at the side of the Explorer. The sedan sat idling at the parking lot entry. I stared, no response. I went around back, opened the hatch, and pulled the Glock from my bag. I tucked it in my jeans and covered it with my T-shirt. I don’t know if the guy saw me and I wasn’t sure if I cared. But I grabbed a water bottle and took a big swig as I closed the hatch door, as if that were the reason I’d opened it. I walked toward the tower.
The Plymouth pulled in and parked. Nobody got out.
Crossing a long open space bothered me, but I figured the tower and its steep, narrow stairwell at least gave me the upper hand. Not ideal, but if the issue had to be forced, I needed something.
I worked my way up the wooden planks. Just before I reached the top, I heard the sedan’s door open and shut.
Because of the high angle, I couldn’t see anyone approaching from directly underneath, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Early morning fog draped the river and the land was all soft pastels in the diffuse light, of somewhat lesser aesthetic impact on me than it might have been under other circumstances.
I listened to the creaks and cracks in the stairway planks of a steady ascension. Another of those recurring dissociative interludes in which I seemed to be watching a movie about myself. I heard heavy breathing cutting through the morning stillness. In less than a minute his head appeared through the stairwell opening at one corner of the viewing platform. When he emerged fully, I almost had to smile.
If this were a movie, he would have come straight from central casting. A big guy, craggy Irish face, black hair laced with scarlet, and gray, just like the well-trimmed beard. Blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt. Not fat so much as sturdy, like maybe he’d been a football lineman. Way over six feet. He wasn’t holding a gun in his hand, but I had little doubt he had one.
I kept my own tucked in. He’d been following me steadily and patiently. Back at Witch Dance, I knew I had to make the first move, and fast. It didn’t feel the same here. I was sure that if he had wanted to hurt me, I would already be feeling it and one or the other of us would be dead.
He stopped a couple feet in front of me.
“How you doing?” He wiped his brow, and made the kinds of mental calculations I guessed he had computed on many occasions in the past.
I nodded but didn’t speak. He looked at me hard, wanting to establish dominance. I’d had the same training. Ready for anything. Initiate nothing.
“Whatever you’re thinking of doing right now, don’t,” he said. It wasn’t a movie-Mafia voice, although whiskey-coated. It sounded more like Tennessee, maybe by way of East Texas.
I adjusted my stance. “I’m not thinking of anything. Except why you’re up here.”
He glanced off toward the river. “Damn. Never seen the Old Man from a perch like this before.”
He took in the view just long enough to say he was in control.
“What you doing mixed up in all this anyway? A white boy?”
“I don’t even know what I’m mixed up in.”
In a flash he was within an arm’s length.
“You have something I need to get.”
“Turns out I don’t have it—”
I tried to step back while I was talking, but I was late and sloppy. I barely saw the ham-sized hand until the back of it slammed into my right cheek, dropping me to one knee. I got up, my eyes watering.
“I don’t care for smart-ass, son.”
I nursed my jaw and tried to back away.
“Don’t,” he said, noticing my hand moving toward the top of my jeans. “It don’t need to go there.” With one hand he pulled back the tail of his shirt. An automatic tucked into a waist holster. “You can put it on the ground, you can make it out of here.”
His other hand was blocking mine. He could have played it differently. In any case, it wasn’t like I had a chance. I pulled up my T-shirt and eased out the Glock.
“Careful.”
I put it on the deck, and faced him.
“I don’t have any painting, if that’s why you’re here. Unless you came for the view.”
He seemed to be considering another physical incentive. “But you know somebody does.”
“I don’t.” I could see why he liked to get close, fast. He had at least six inches and sixty pounds on me. Guys that big didn’t need to use guns, especially the pros.
“You a strange one, ain’t you?” He seemed to be working something out in his head. “So try again. How you involved in this? If you’re a bodyguard . . . well, that’s pretty fuckin’ sad.”
My mouth was having a little trouble working, I realized, maybe from the blood inside it. I touched at it with my fingers. “I’m helping a friend bury her brother.”
“What, that fag stole the painting?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Another swat, more like a cupped palm this time, hitting me in front of the left ear. I almost went over the rail backwards but held on.
“Can’t seem to get your attention.” He waved his hand in the air. “Damn, that’s a hard head.”
I looked down toward the Glock. He picked up the look, pushed the gun away with one foot, as though it bored him to do so.
“You can take a punch. Just keep it at that, son.” He was up in my face again. “Look, here’s the thing. All I want is that painting. Not you. Not her. Nothing else. I know where you stayed last night. I didn’t go in. I could have. You understand? Let’s just concentrate on business, what say?”
I shook my head a few times, to stay alert. “You’ve been following us?”
“Me? Hell, no. I’m on business up in Tunica. I got a call to come down here to the boonies.”
“A call?”
“You know, a junkie. He wanted to get out of some trouble and said there was a white man and some hot black piece come into Rosedale, getting everyone talking up at the church or wherever, maybe in some kind of trouble. Junkies are like that. Most of it’s crap but I happened to know there’s been some trouble, definitely. Damn, here comes the sun.”
We both shaded our eyes as it came out of low clouds. I couldn’t shake the fog in my head or the ringing in my ear, but tried not to show it.
“So you found us that way?”
“It’s what I get paid to do, son. But back to your problem. Reason I’m here is to collect that piece of property. You give it to me and we’re done. That easy enough for you to follow?”
“I follow. I just don’t have it. She doesn’t, either. I don’t know why Tr
ey thinks we do.”
“Trey Barnett?”
I came back to life a little hearing that faint note of surprise. Clouds covered the sun again.
“Forget him. All those damn fags.”
“I don’t get it—no, wait—” I put up a hand defensively.
He waved it down with his own. “It’s too hot. Humid as a fuckin’ dish rag, too. I figure you’re lying again, I’ll let you know.”
“I mean, you aren’t working for Trey?”
His right arm drew back and I steadied myself. But he dropped it to his side. He looked off at the river. “Jesus Christ.” He shook his head, studied me again. “You have any clue at all?”
I looked once again at the useless Glock. I hoped my eardrum was okay. In retrospect, climbing the tower hadn’t been my smartest move. Maybe I should have just shot him in the head in the stairwell. But, hell, I hadn’t been in the game for damn near twenty years. And this was a game with its own rules. “Tell me what you want to know.”
“The painting, man. That not sinking in?” His face turned dark red.
I steadied myself against the railing. “We’ve been trying to find it, so you guys would stop trying to kill us. But, look, here I am. Do I look like I know what I’m doing?”
That got a throat rumble that sounded like a laugh. But it was better than a punch.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“My name’s Prine. Jack. I live in New Orleans, I’m a writer. Sort of. I met a pretty girl. People started chasing us. I’m just making this up as we go . . .”
The anger passed from his face. It was replaced by something akin to bemusement.
“You don’t have any idea who I am, do you?”
“Other than one of Trey’s guys, no.”
He shook his head. “Writer, huh? Sort of? Hmm. Well, Shakespeare, a rose ain’t a rose out here and I ain’t workin’ for that rich boy scum. So don’t call me that again.”
I nodded with what I hoped was conviction.
“I work for some other people. This Barnett prick owes them a lot of money. He has a piece of art worth a few million that’ll pay it off. He was gonna give it to us but somehow hasn’t been able to.” He wiped his forehead again. “Turns out you’re the reason, at least so he tells my boss.”