All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  *

  They got Patty to serve crab potpie ’cause it’d been Savannah’s favorite, but she didn’t eat much at all. After, they sat beneath the glass roof in the orangery and her daddy sipped brandy from crystal while her mother held her hand.

  She looked at the sky like she’d forgot how many stars could shine.

  “Donald called and wanted to know if you’re ready to proceed,” her mother said.

  “I’m not . . . I don’t –”

  “You’ll feel better once it’s done, sweetheart,” her daddy said.

  She glanced over at him. He was aging better than her mother; thick hair only touched with gray framing a handsome face.

  “I said he wasn’t right,” he said. “I said it from the start but you’ve always been stubborn.” He winked at her like that’d soften it. “Bobby’s got that look in his eyes. I’ve seen it before in boys who have been through the system. Dally does pro bono at Grove and he says half the time he’s dealing with these people.”

  “These people?” she said.

  He caught it and smiled. “It’s not Bobby’s fault, and it’s noble what he’s doing, we can appreciate it, the church is lucky to have him. But you and him . . . and us too –”

  “You know they brought charges against another man last week,” her mother said. “He worked at that home where Bobby was and they only just caught up with him. You can’t undo damage like that, sweetheart. Who knows what that does to a person. It breaks my heart, really it does, but we have to look out for our own. And you have a chance now –”

  “What do you mean ‘now’?” Savannah said, snatching her hand back.

  “I just –”

  “You couldn’t have walked out before, when you had Michael to think about. You couldn’t do that to him, you’re a good person, sweetheart,” her daddy said, easy like he didn’t know how it sounded, or like the brandy was lulling. “But even now, when you smile, it’s not the same smile my little girl used to have. You just look so sad.”

  She felt heat rise to her cheeks. She saw them, caring in their own way on their own terms, and for a moment she hated them. She didn’t get angry; she didn’t yell and curse.

  “Sign the papers and come back to us, and you can start again,” he said. “You’re young and beautiful and I know you’re not ready to think about dating –”

  Savannah stood. “I still love him.”

  She caught her mother, the way she looked at her daddy, like she was fifteen and crying love for some boy at the club that’d danced with her.

  “I still love Bobby.”

  She heard the sounds they made as she left them to their beautiful life, sounds of despair ’cause their daughter was lost and they didn’t know how to right her.

  *

  “You look better,” Black said.

  Peach glared at him.

  “I mean good. You look good, Peach.”

  She smiled, something fresh in it. “I feel better. Those folks I been speaking to, over at the program I was tellin’ you about –”

  “Pinegrove.”

  “They been helpin’ me.”

  Black walked through the house and out into the backyard.

  “I took it for granted. Just seeing the stars,” he said, looking up.

  She brought out two glasses of iced tea and set them down by the swing seat. They sat together close.

  He sipped his drink, pulled a face and she laughed.

  “Ain’t no tequila, or vodka,” he said.

  “Ain’t no rum neither.”

  She took his hand in hers, rubbed it light, and stared out.

  Her yard was long; no back fence saw it run to the trees beyond. Black heard night songs and felt far from Grace.

  “I was thinkin’ . . . I been talkin’, I been thinkin’ like she’s dead, but that don’t mean she is.”

  Black looked down, didn’t meet her eye.

  “Same with those other girls. Maybe they’re holed up someplace. Or maybe he’s still got ’em. I know it won’t be nice there, I ain’t foolish enough to think that, but it . . . she might still be livin’, might be breathin’. All the stats I read, it don’t really mean nothin’ when you ain’t certain. That right, Black?”

  He squeezed her hand.

  “I like your dress,” he said.

  It was light and had flowers on it. Daisies. She had her hair pinned up and her lips painted.

  “I been for a job. That diner on Route 11. You know it?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s just waitressing.”

  “That’s good, Peach.”

  “Yeah?” she said, looking over.

  The moon was too big and too blue.

  “I ain’t seein’ those . . .” she trailed off. She gripped his face and turned it toward her, holding it tight. “I’m stopping. Those things I do, I’m stopping.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “I worry . . . about that man. I listen out in case you call. I don’t want nobody to hurt you, Peach.”

  She nodded.

  “I hate it when you cry,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Stop it then.”

  “I know what you see in me,” she said. “I see it too. I hate it but I see it.”

  “I don’t -–”

  “You reckon one day you’ll see somethin’ else, when I’m a better person.”

  “Why do you talk like that?” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m good and you ain’t.”

  “Everyone’s lookin’ to be more than they are.”

  He pulled her in.

  “First I just wanted you to keep lookin’ for my daughter,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Now I just want you to keep lookin’ for me.”

  “I see you,” he said.

  “You don’t, Black. It ain’t sex, like it was at the start. That’s me, what I know to do, sex for money or sex for favors, there’s somethin’ at the end of it more than there should be. But now . . . I wait for you to call and to stop by, but not just ’cause you might’ve got someplace with Della.”

  She looked at him deep and he fought the urge to turn away.

  “So, at Pinegrove, they said it helps, bein’ honest about your feelings and facin’ up. So that’s what I’m doin’.”

  Later, when she was sleeping, he took the last of the old her from the drawer and sat out back beneath the broke blue that fell between swaying trees. He put the rock on the spoon and the spoon on the flame of the silver lighter his daddy had left for him.

  “Enough now,” he said, as he breathed deep. “Enough.”

  *

  He slipped silent from her house and drove back to Grace. He left the cruiser parked in a copse a quarter mile from the Lumen house.

  It was dark and it was silent and he sobered fast. He wouldn’t leave nothing, he’d bare all the secrets till there weren’t no lingering doubts left no matter the cost. Peach was right, it was time to stop hiding and face up.

  He thought of Summer Ryan as he broke into the Lumen house. He swept each room quick and with care. The house was big but the rooms were empty, only a couple lived in ’cause maybe they couldn’t afford to heat the old place.

  He saw photos on the wall, the old man smiling that tight smile, eyes so hard he could’ve broke the lens. There weren’t a trace of Samson, not in the frames or anyplace else. There was guest beds upstairs, sparse and dusty, the smell unkempt and cold. Wallpaper peeled and gold sconces hung loose. There was furniture, old and brown and heavy.

  He found Samson’s bedroom. There was a bed and a cross above it, a desk and some baseball cards in a neat stack on the small chest. He searched it careful and found nothing. Then he moved to the old man’s room and did the same.

  He wiped sweat from his head as the grandfather clock chimed loud. Black knew he couldn’t use nothing he found, but Summer kept him moving, and when he saw the old staircase leading to the attic he climb
ed it quick and quiet.

  The roof was stripped back and he could see white tarp that held out water but none of the night noises. He could see the cloud through gaps, its body so leaden folk were saying if it dropped it’d flatten the town dead.

  He walked thin boards that ached and groaned and gave a little with each step. The timber was rotted and junk was piled. He searched awhile and was about to call it quits when he saw it: an old file cabinet in the far corner, a dust sheet covering one side.

  When he got close he saw it had a lock but it was busted like it’d been jimmied. He opened it and took out the magazines. There was a decent stack, the kind Lucky Delfray sold at his gas station, sins of the flesh burning hot in Black’s hand.

  He shone his flashlight over them. He thought of the pastor, and of that fear in Samson. He closed his eyes and nodded, ’cause now it fit.

  29

  Summer

  The devil is in the detail. I never really got that.

  I watched Pastor Lumen preachin’ before the stroke took him. I wondered about sanity, how it visits and how it stays or leaves.

  I sat in St. Luke’s and the hours passed like minutes and I watched Bobby as he did the things he did. People spoke to him and he smiled at them but I knew it weren’t his real smile ’cause that one’s so different. They fawned. I saw them carry him and he let them, with their wide eyes and their reverence and their faith so blind they couldn’t see the nothin’ in his soul when they asked for his blessing.

  Samson was there more than any other. At first I reckoned he was prayin’ for his daddy but there was somethin’ more there, some kinda hurt that rode his body when he kneeled, shoulders hunched tight like his muscles was in spasm. Needin’ the Lord that much, that lingering fear that maybe he ain’t even listenin’.

  *

  “I reckon you should sing in the choir,” Bobby said with a straight face.

  “I reckon you should renounce the Lord.”

  Raine showed me how to paint my lips and make them look bigger and fuller like maybe I’d had some kinda allergic reaction.

  “Maybe you’ve got a beautiful voice but you don’t know it.”

  “I sing in the shower. Nowhere else.”

  He smiled, maybe wanted to say somethin’ but held it ’cause on the face of it nothin’ much had changed.

  “How come you chose God?” I said.

  “Is this the part where I say he chose me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I believe, Summer. Open yourself to that.”

  “Or put the blinkers on.”

  “You asked, I answered.”

  “I didn’t mean nothin’.”

  “I know. Anyhow, most of the time that’s true. You give somethin’ thought and the thought becomes more.”

  “And other times?”

  He reached up and wiped sweat from his head ’cause we were sittin’ in sunlight.

  “Other times I wonder if I’d do it again. If I had my time over would I walk the unforgiving path to offer others forgiveness.”

  “Were your parents religious?”

  “I grew up in a children’s home.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was too young to remember my life before, which I reckon is a blessing either way.”

  We didn’t talk like this, where honesty takes a homeward turn. I reckoned maybe the truth lay nearer the start, that maybe the church gave Bobby a family so large.

  “Savannah likes to picture me the orphan boy that didn’t get anything for his birthday, but the truth lies a long way from that. I give my stories a lick of gloss when she delves ’cause her life . . . you know some of her family helped finance the Pensacola Railroad back in 1880? I’ve seen the photographs. It don’t impress her, to trace a root so deep into history like that.”

  I nodded, saw Bobby, and wanted to reach out but didn’t.

  “That home, in Arnsdale, it’s black and white in my memories.” He didn’t look at me when he spoke.

  “Why do you like me?”

  “I never said I liked you.”

  I smiled.

  “I think about you all the time,” I said. “Is that bad?”

  “Thoughts aren’t bad or good. They’re just thoughts. Our mind is our own; it’s the only place where true freedom exists.”

  I could feel the earth moving beneath my feet and I was running just to hold still.

  “I can’t sleep. I think about you then I can’t sleep,” I said.

  “What do you think about?”

  “You doin’ things to me.”

  “What kinda things?” He didn’t look at me, just kept his eyes on the church, the gravestones, and the long grass and the bell tower that rose so high.

  “Things I read about. Things I heard about. Things I seen in movies. Things that make me so shamed I can’t believe they’re even right. If there’s a line I ain’t found it. I don’t even know myself no more. What does that make me?”

  He stood slow. He walked slow.

  I got up and followed.

  The church was shaded and empty and cool but I didn’t feel it.

  I watched Bobby, he moves with confidence, like he’d bowl over an army if they got in his way.

  We walked over to the altar. The carved stone surround so intricate it must’ve taken a million years to finish.

  I stood there, tryin’ to be bold. He faced me and I looked down at my feet and my sandals were pink.

  He has skin too flawless. I wanted to ask if he was real. Maybe if I touched him I’d leave a print that couldn’t never be covered.

  “In my dreams I do as I’m told. Why do you reckon that is? I can’t command my own dreams. I wonder if that makes me weak or meek, and I wonder if there’s even a difference.”

  He took my hand and led me into his office.

  He locked the door and he dropped to his knees and I wondered about Epicurus and the vanity of desire.

  I could go on. It’s my story.

  The devil is in the detail.

  Maybe I do get that after all.

  30

  Painted Fences

  Ray Bowdoin stood in front of Black, a little too close but Black wouldn’t step back, not ever. Ray was tall and strong and might’ve been handsome till he lost his money and the standing it came with.

  “I need to speak with Samson,” Ray said.

  “Ain’t happening.”

  Ray stared at Black and Black stared back.

  “I need –”

  “And I said it ain’t happening.”

  Ray tightened his jaw and Black smiled. There weren’t much else in the world Black would’ve liked more than Ray Bowdoin coming at him but he knew it wouldn’t happen ’cause Ray was tough but he weren’t dumb, least not when he was sober. He tried to imagine him going off on Purv – mismatch didn’t come close.

  “I’m working on the Lumen house, spend half my time on that fuckin’ roof. Samson cuts the checks while the old man is sick. I can’t finish till I get paid.”

  Black watched him awhile, took in the buzz cut and the hundred-dollar boots and the sports coat. Still dressed like he was something, but Black knew how bad he was into the bank for, and rumor was he’d partnered with the Kitcheners and their people, lost their money too.

  “You started work on the West End Mission yet? I got their people calling about it, like I ain’t got nothin’ better to do with my time,” Black said.

  “I need the money from the Lumen job, then I’ll get on it.” Ray swallowed. “Please, Black.”

  Black smiled. “I like that you had to say that, Ray.”

  Ray glared and Black glared till Ray dropped his eyes.

  “He’s downstairs, room three.”

  Ray glanced across at Trix and then at Noah. And then he smiled at Black and walked back to see Samson.

  *

  As days passed Joe Ryan called in more favors. There were six trucks now, parked outside the station. They took turns making runs to Mae’s, bringing back trays
of coffee and topping them with liquor in the evenings. There was a news van across the street, local, but Joe had heard the networks were on their way. A missing girl, a member of the church being held, and a sky where night had bled day away for near three weeks.

  Yeah, the networks were coming.

  Black had come back late the previous night. Joe had watched him careful, looking for signs of change, but Black was a decent enough poker player. There was still no word about charging Samson.

  Tommy was drinking coffee and smoking, keeping half an eye on the pretty reporter as she ate her lunch.

  Hank Frailey had set up more tables outside the Whiskey Barrel, a fat candle burned on each of them.

  They looked up when they heard noise, then they saw Pastor Lumen in his glorified shopping cart, and maybe twenty others behind.

  The pretty news reporter dropped her sandwich to the street and ran to the van, rounded her men and prepped.

  Black came out fast, followed by Milk and Rusty. They took the steps two at a time and jogged across the grass, hoping to head them off.

  Joe glanced up at the station, at the lights burning, and the flags and pillars. When he was seven years old he’d sat on those same steps and waited for his daddy to get out. He couldn’t remember the charge now, one of the minors before the major.

  The square had changed some since then, like the shine was all but dull now. Eight stores shuttered, the promise of more.

  They were faring better than some; Joe had a cousin in Danton and they’d lost everything. Joe wondered about the consolidation of the mills, about those that gained at costs greater than dollars. He looked at his boys, at their tired faces drawn with worry for his daughter.

  There was more yelling so he turned slow and watched the madness unfold.

  *

  Two hours later lines had been drawn. Pastor Lumen had stood back and watched his people fight for him and for Samson. Black held a hard line, which weren’t all that easy with the old man glaring at him. The church people clustered tight, the braver throwing glances at Joe and his boys, who looked on silent. There were placards calling for Samson’s release.

  At one point Deely White glanced over at Austin Ray Chalmers and spit on the ground. Austin was over quick. Milk stepped in before Deely got his ass kicked, then got heckled for his troubles.