by Alex Bledsoe
“That’s a fact, Mr. Cocker. How’s things in Appleville?”
Cocker ignored the question and turned to the car. “Jeb, I’m here to see about buying this little beauty from you. I still got my old state car, but it ain’t good for much more than running to the Woolworth’s and back, and I tore up the fender when I went sliding off a curve over on Mullins Road. I know your cousin got run over down in Mississippi, and when I seen the ad in the paper, I thought, ‘I believe I’ll do ol’ Jeb a favor.’ I’ll give you fifteen hundred for it, hard cash, right now.”
Crabtree swallowed hard, looking from Zginski to Cocker. “Ah . . .”
“I have already purchased the vehicle,” Zginski said. “For the asking price of four thousand dollars.”
Cocker’s gaze hardened, but his smile grew wider. He put one huge hand on Crabtree’s shoulder. “That a fact? Well, I know you ain’t had time to sign over the title, Jeb, so why don’t you just give this fella back his money and we’ll do our own little deal.” He turned to Zginski. “See, in America deals ’tween friends stack up higher than deals with strangers.”
Zginski smiled as well. “I can appreciate that, Mr. . . . ?”
Cocker’s face darkened, as if the idea someone might forget his name was the worst insult imaginable. “Cocker. Byron Cocker.”
“Mr. Cocker was our county sheriff,” Crabtree said quickly. “He ran out the bootleggers and the whoremongers. They made a movie about him, too: Swinging Hard. You seen it?”
“I’m afraid not,” Zginski said, never taking his eyes from Cocker’s. “And it is immaterial. I have paid for the car before you, I have paid more than you offered, and Mr. Crabtree has given me the ownership documents. It is mine. That is the rule of commerce.”
The air tingled with Cocker’s repressed rage. At last, chest thrust out, he stepped so close Zginski had to look almost straight up to see his face. “I may not be the sheriff anymore,” Cocker said quietly, “but it don’t mean I can’t pull strings. Now, I mean to have this car, for the price I named. Either go along with us, or you might find it real hard getting out of the county.”
Zginski’s eyes narrowed. The thought that he might have to kill everyone here did not bother him, although it meant he would have to give up the automobile. He chose instead to say, “Mr. Cocker, the decision is not mine. It is Mr. Crabtree’s. He has my money in his pocket.”
They both turned to the sweating man. Weakened by the sun, Zginski could not fully control him, but influencing Crabtree’s feeble will would not require much energy.
Crabtree started to speak, then frowned as if a new, completely unexpected thought had occurred to him. He looked at the car, then at Zginski, and finally at Cocker. “Sheriff, I know how long a reach you got, and how big a stick you carry. But I got to tell you, my cousin Gerry would purely turn over in his grave if he found out that I sold his car to an officer of the law. He never thought too highly of lawmen in general, and you in particular. That’s just how he saw it. So I’m gonna have to keep my word, pass on your offer, and accept this man’s money. That’s just the way it is.”
Now Zginski looked up at Cocker with a benign shrug. “The man has made his choice.”
Cocker’s face turned red, highlighting the scar tissue. His big fists clenched, but he merely said, “If that’s the way you want it, Jeb. I’ll be sure to see you around.” He turned without a word and strode from the barn.
Crabtree was drenched with sweat, and as soon as Cocker disappeared he leaned against the car’s fender and almost sobbed. “What in the hell did I just do? I won’t be able to drive to the store now without getting pulled over by one of his pals.”
Zginski said nothing; Crabtree’s ultimate fate did not concern him. But he gazed through the open barn door at the house, its decrepitude only partially hiding its former magnificence. “Mr. Crabtree,” he said quietly, “have you considered selling this place and relocating?”
Crabtree shook his head. “No, Dark Willows has been in the Crabtree family since before the Civil War. The carpetbaggers didn’t get her, and nobody else will, either, long as a Crabtree’s alive somewhere.” He took a deep breath and used his shirttail to wipe the sweat from his face. “Jesus, I need a beer.” He walked away without a backward glance.
Zginski looked at the house again. He smiled normally, allowing his fangs to show. Then he turned back to his new car.
CHAPTER 4
COCKER STRODE FROM the barn with a fury he hadn’t known in years. The closest he could recall was the agony after waking up in the hospital and learning moonshiners had raped and murdered his wife after leaving him for dead. That had felt like a similar attack on his basic masculinity a symbolic castration that left him with an unbearable need to reassert himself. He’d done it then by walking into the little country store that fronted for the bootleggers and killing three of them with his bare hands.
He was no longer a sheriff though, and could not hide behind his badge. But he was still an American, a former Marine who would be God damned if some Red Communist foreigner would cheat him out of something he wanted. Yeah, that was it: it was not just an affront against him, it was a middle finger to the whole U.S. of A. And that could not stand.
He spotted the black boy again, now talking to Crabtree’s nubile daughter. She’d certainly filled out over the last year, her curves now suggesting the supple figure of a grown woman instead of a lanky girl. Her clothes barely maintained her modesty. She was a dead ringer for her late mother, one of the few girls who’d turned Cocker down in high school. Cocker felt a stir of desire for her, but his fury quickly overrode it.
He gave the black teen the same high-intensity glare he’d used on die-hard murderers and said, “What you lookin’ at, boy? I ought to take a two-by-four to that uppity head of yours.”
There was the expected flicker of resentment, then the dark eyes looked down at the ground. “I ain’t lookin’ at nothin’, sir,” he mumbled.
“You best keep it that way, or I’ll give you a case of road rash you won’t ever forget. And Clora? You get on in the house. Don’t be talking to this nigger trash, you hear me?”
“I hear you, Sheriff,” she drawled.
Cocker returned to his car. He started the engine, then revved it repeatedly just to hear the great rumbling sound. He also wrote down the license number of the pickup truck that the Russkie must have driven. Then he put the car in gear, backed out hard and fast enough to stir a cloud of dust, then floored it once he hit blacktop, headed for Inman’s Store, just across the city limit line from bone-dry Appleville.
He could almost taste the cold beer on his tongue when he remembered he still had Mama Prudence’s groceries in the trunk.
Clora took another drag on her cigarette. “ ‘I ain’t lookin’ at nothin’, sir,’ ” she said, imitating Leonardo. “I thought you city boys were all tough. Black Power and all that.”
“Tough ain’t the same as stupid,” Leonardo said. “That man’s bigger than a tractor. And he’s the sheriff, too.”
“Ex-sheriff, and held together by pins and scars these days,” Clora said. “Wonder what your friend did to get him all pissed-off?”
“How do you know it wasn’t your daddy?”
She snorted, a little puff of smoke burping from her lips. “My daddy wouldn’t no more stand up to Byron Cocker than he’d fly to the moon. Nobody around here would. Just because he ain’t sheriff no more don’t mean he still don’t have fingers in every pie.”
Leonardo and Clora turned as an exhausted-looking Jeb Crabtree, followed by a typically smug Zginski, emerged from the barn. Crabtree muttered, “Put some clothes on, I said,” as he went indoors. He was clearly upset, and Clora’s face creased in concern. She quickly masked it as Zginski joined them.
“Get your car squared away?” Leonardo asked.
“Of course.” He turned to Clora. “Is your house as badly maintained as it appears to be?”
Clora’s eyes narrowed in anger. “I beg yo
ur pardon? You ain’t buying our house, mister, so just keep your snotty comments to yourself. I think you already upset my daddy enough for one day.”
Zginski was out of patience with Philistine presumption and reached out with his power. Like her father, Clora’s will was essentially weak. When the overwhelming sexual desire struck, she could only stand with her mouth open, staring at him. She whimpered slightly, and licked her suddenly dry lips.
Leonardo sighed and shook his head.
Zginski stepped close and gently brushed a stray hair from her face. She moaned at the fleeting contact and leaned her cheek toward his hand. “Now,” he said gently, “tell me about the condition of the house.”
Clora was so aroused she could barely breathe, and she lost all sense of her surroundings. This dark-eyed gorgeous foreigner made her legs so wobbly she had to cling to the column beside her. “I’m sorry, I . . . I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said, her voice a ragged whisper.
“It is of no concern,” Zginski purred and stroked her face. “Tell me what the house is like.”
“We only use the downstairs,” she said, eyes closed. “Except for my room in the attic. The place is a mess, but Daddy always says the framework is too solid to ever fall down.” She swallowed hard and said shakily, “Would you like to see my room?”
Zginski trailed a finger down the side of her sweaty neck, stopping just at the edge of her tube top. Through her skin, he felt the hot blood pulsing in her carotid artery. “You will not remember that you and I spoke,” he said, then released her from his influence.
She blinked back to the moment. Her body remained excited, but now she had no idea of the source. She stared at Leonardo and decided it must be a response to him. She’d been intrigued by him before, but now . . .
“We’re going,” Leonardo said to her. Why did he look so annoyed? she wondered. Had she done something?
“The new vehicle is filled with fuel and ready to be taken,” Zginski said to Leonardo as he handed over the truck keys. “I will drive it. You follow.”
“Okay,” Leonardo said, “but just don’t get flashy.”
“He’s got the right idea,” Clora said, still inexplicably breathless. “You might not want to come back to this county for a long time.”
“I do not let overbearing, swaggering coxcombs dictate my travels,” Zginski said. “I will go where I wish.” He nodded to her and said, “Thank you, my dear,” then walked back to the barn.
Leonardo scowled at Clora’s confused expression. She pressed one hand against her stomach, trying to calm the butterflies still fluttering there. “He’s like that,” he said gently. “Don’t pay him no mind.”
“I . . . I won’t,” she stammered, unable to think of anything to get him to stay.
Leonardo smiled. “Good girl. See you around.”
“Promise?” she pleaded softly. Her gaze followed him as he went to the truck and drove away.
Byron Cocker was still steaming when he turned up the gravel drive to Mama Prudence’s house. Unlike the Crabtrees’ run-down residence, he could imagine how this place looked back in its glory days, when the South had both civilization and dignity. Since then, with the advent of civil rights, the end of the military draft, and the rise in drugs brought from the big cities, everything that gave the South its special grandeur and pride had seemed to decay, much like the Crabtree mansion. At least the Bolade place retained a hint of its majesty.
When he parked in the gravel space before the house, his eye as always was drawn to the small family graveyard. The lone mausoleum, unusual in both its size and placement, stood in the sun like a small marble work shed. He’d never gone over to see who was buried in it, and never remembered to ask Mama Prudence about it. One day he’d do both, but today the heat and his own simmering rage made him hurry to get the groceries inside. He opened the trunk, picked up the bags, and carried them to the porch.
With his arms full, he had to ring the doorbell with his elbow, and he knew it would take Mama Prudence forever to get there. But almost at once the door opened, so quickly it startled him. He jumped back, nearly tripping over his own feet. “Lord Amighty, Mama Prudence, you must’ve been peeking out watching for me.”
The old woman laughed. “No, I happened to be standing right by the door,” she said, her voice a dry rasp. “You scared the pee-diddle out of me, too. Come on in out of the heat, Sheriff.”
He did as she asked. She had long gray hair in two braids, and wore a shapeless housedress beneath a tattered apron. Big rings glittered on her long, bony fingers. Her face seemed not so much wrinkled as sunken, like she was drying out instead of aging.
As always, once she closed the heavy front door the house was almost totally dark, the only light sifting in around the heavy curtains. It smelled like a museum, all musty and stale, but with a weird fruity tang that Byron could never identify. He’d finally decided that rather than clean, Mama Prudence simply sprayed air freshener everywhere on the days she knew he was coming.
“How about this drought we’re having?” Byron said as he waited for his eyes to adjust. He doubted any of the lamps even had working bulbs anymore. The surprising thing was that all the flat surfaces seemed to be free of dust. Did the old woman spend all her waking hours wandering the house with a chamois cloth and a can of Pledge?
“A drought’s just a sign the world’s out of kilter,” Mama Prudence said as she moved delicately across the foyer. Her steps made no sound on the hardwood floor. “Something isn’t how it’s supposed to be, and the world is just going to wait until it rights itself. Then we’ll get the rain back.”
“Never heard that one before,” Byron said. She moved at a snail’s pace; he could’ve crossed the room in three strides.
“Oh, us old folks have great stores of wisdom about things you youngsters have forgotten,” she said in her genteel Southern lilt. “You do yourselves a disservice by shutting us away in homes for the elderly. You think that when our bodies go, we have nothing left to contribute.”
“You’re taking care of yourself pretty well,” he observed.
“I do all right. But it does get lonely.”
He glanced into the living room, and stopped. He supposed the large painting over the mantel had always been there, but now a shaft of sunlight broke through a gap in the curtains and illuminated it like a spotlight. The brushstrokes sparkled in relief, and the heavy wooden frame shone with ornate gilt work.
Mama Prudence stopped when she saw his reaction. “Are you just now noticing that picture, Sheriff?”
“I reckon so. Have you always had it there?”
“That’s where my great-grandmother placed it, and that’s where it will stay as long as I’m around.”
“Is she a relative, then?”
“Oh, yes. That is the infamous Patience Bolade. Have you heard of her?”
“ ’Fraid not.”
“In 1864 she took her own life when she was abandoned at the altar. It was quite the scandal. And, from what the family always said about her and her ways, it was a lucky escape for the groom.”
He looked more closely at the painting. The woman in it had kind eyes, or at least the artist had painted her that way. Her skin was pale, and her ample décolletage stood out sharply against her dark dress. “Was she really that bad?”
“Oh, she was a monster,” Mama Prudence said vehemently. “She lived to torment her sister, my namesake.”
“Prudence?”
“Oh, yes. If Prudence had anything she valued, Patience would take it away. It was a reflex for her, like drawing a breath.”
“Sounds like you’re still angry about it.”
Mama Prudence snapped around and glared at him with an intensity doubly surprising in such an old woman. In the dim light, her eyes seemed to suddenly glow red. It only lasted a moment, and then she smiled, revealing oddly long canines. She nodded toward the painting. “I’ve heard about Patience my whole life, and I carry the name of her victim. I suppose I do take it a
bit personally. Kind of silly, isn’t it?”
“Family never lets you go,” Cocker said sadly. “Not even the dead ones.”
“Especially not the dead ones,” Mama Prudence agreed. She stood on tiptoe and patted Cocker’s face. He jumped at her ice-cold touch. “Now bring those groceries into the kitchen before your arms fall off, young man.”
Compared to the rest of the house the kitchen was brightly lit. The brittle white curtains had yellowed so that the whole room looked vaguely jaundiced. The ancient refrigerator’s compressor hummed and rattled.
Cocker put the bags on the counter and began unloading them. He put a stack of glossy periodicals on the counter. “Here’s your women’s magazines. People sure do look at me funny when I buy those,” he said with a chuckle. He opened the pantry door and added, “Doesn’t look like you’ve made much of a dent in last month’s groceries.”
She waved her gnarled hand dismissively. In this light, she looked even more like one of those dried-apple dolls for sale at the flea market. “At my age, Sheriff, I have a limited palate.”
“I done told you, Mama Prudence, I’m not the sheriff anymore.”
“I think most people will always think of you as the sheriff, Byron. You’ve certainly earned it, losing your wife the way you did.”
Cocker winced slightly, as he always did when someone brought up Vicki Lynn. “That’s all in the past now. I’m just a private citizen, trying to get by.”
“And a movie star, don’t forget.”
“Now, Mama Prudence, that wasn’t me in that movie. Bo Dan Butcher was a lot prettier than I ever was. Besides, you know I never jumped from the bed of a pickup onto the hood of a car. That’s just foolishness.”
He put a box of cornstarch in the cupboard, and when he turned around Mama Prudence stood right behind him, so close their bodies almost touched. He jumped, startled, and dropped a bottle of vanilla extract on the counter. It shattered.