by Ace Atkins
I was studying a Ledger cartoon, with three Phenix City officials as the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys perched atop a box marked VICE, PROSTITUTION, MURDER, when I heard a knock at the door. Anne ran ahead of me and I yelled for her to step back, and she looked at me, hurt from the harsh sound of my voice.
“I got it,” I said. “It’s okay.”
Two men stood at the door. One huge man wore a khaki Guard uniform and the other a navy suit and hand-painted tie. The man in the suit asked if I was Lamar Murphy and I nodded.
“Bernard Sykes,” said the man in the crisp navy suit. He introduced the guardsman as Major Black.
I shook both their hands and invited them inside. Sykes walked in, but Black said he’d prefer to wait by the jeep.
We sat down at our dinette, and I offered him some coffee.
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
Bernard Sykes was a little younger than me, a little taller, with a ski-slope nose and neatly combed brown hair. His suit was linen, recently pressed, and he wore a gold watch, cuff links, and some kind of class ring. The gem was red, so I figured he went to the University of Alabama.
He started out talking about the heat, how it was going to get up into the nineties, and then I responded with something about hoping for more rain. As we talked like farmers, Sykes opened up a plastic briefcase and pulled out a yellow legal pad and began to twirl a pen.
I excused myself and poured more coffee.
“I guess you know why I’m here.”
“To talk about the weather?”
“John Patterson is in Washington.”
“Flew up yesterday,” I said. “It was in the papers.”
Sykes looked down at the blank sheet of paper and then back at me across the dinette. My wife had hung some skillets on the wall, and we had one of those small cuckoo clocks that sounded eight just as he was about to speak.
I smiled and shrugged.
“Mr. Patterson has made statements publicly about us being babysitters.”
“John’s frustrated.”
Sykes looked up. “When no one in town even admits they’ve heard the name Albert Patterson, there are bound to be problems.”
“You might want to start disarming the town first.”
He looked at me.
“Until you strip those gangsters of their pieces, no one in their right mind is going to talk to you.”
Sykes nodded. “We’d have to place the entire city under martial law, and I don’t believe that’s been done since Reconstruction. Governor Persons wants alternatives.”
I nodded and shrugged. I lit a cigarette and sipped a bit of my coffee. From the kitchen window, I saw two elderly women walking through our backyard with shower caps on their head. Joyce helped them up onto the steps of her little white-clapboard beauty shop and greeted them with a smile.
“Did you know old women like their hair to be blue?”
“You men are going to have to trust somebody,” Sykes said.
“That would be nice.”
Sykes put down his pen. He took a deep breath and picked it up again, drumming the point on the blank paper. “Just pass this on. I do not work for Silas Garrett. He’s not a part of this.”
“And what about Arch Ferrell and Sheriff Matthews?”
I watched him. Sykes drew something on the blank pad.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with Mr. Ferrell,” Sykes said.
“You want to tell me a little more, doc?”
“Let’s just say that the attorney general’s office is in complete control of this investigation.”
“What about the town? Are you going to just leave it the way you found it?”
“No, sir.”
“When are you going to really shut it down?”
“We haven’t found anything yet,” he said. “That’s the problem.”
I took another sip of black coffee, emptying the rest, and then washed out the cup, leaving it to dry on a wooden rack. Out in my little shaded backyard, my children played cowboys and Indians in the dirt. Tommy had a pair of those silver six-shooters with caps and blasted and blasted from behind a tree.
“Is it that hard?” I asked.
“What’s that?”
“Finding what you’re looking for,” I said, grabbing my Texaco ball cap from the counter. “Let’s go. I’ll show you the way.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, MAJOR BLACK BOUNDED THE jeep along a backcountry road, not too far from Seale, and pulled over where I pointed. The road was dirt and endless and covered in a canopy of oak and pecan branches. And soon they were behind me, me leading the way down a little fire road maybe a half mile into the woods, where we came across another dirt road and followed it for a while until I held up a hand and pointed into a clearing. Sykes followed along, swatting branches away from his face, his suit jacket in the car, his suit pants rolled to above his ankles, wingtips covered in red dust. He’d sweated clean through his dress shirt, but Black didn’t show an ounce of perspiration as he squatted down behind a long row of privet bush and waited.
I motioned over to a large barn that had once been painted. The doors had been locked with a long two-by-four and then sealed with a chain and lock. Nearby, two black men in dirty undershirts sat on the hood of a shiny red Buick. One played with a pistol while the other cleaned his nails with a pocketknife. The man with a pocketknife wore a pistol sticking out of his trousers.
“How do you know what’s in there?” Sykes said, whispering.
“You want to ask them?” I said.
Black looked at me and then back at Sykes, who was wiping his brow with his painted tie.
“So this is it?” Black said. It was the most he’d spoken since we’d met. The man stood six foot five and must’ve weighed two-fifty. Standing near him was like being under an oak.
I shook my head. “One of a dozen or more,” I said. “They’ve got slots and horse-racing machines and tables tucked away in most of the county.”
Sykes nodded, his Hollywood hair covered in briars. He picked one out and tossed it to the ground.
We followed the dirt road back and then trailed along the fire road back to the jeep. The cicadas this summer buzzed away like screams in the trees, the heat covering our bodies like a thick wool coat.
“I’d be glad to give the governor the same tour,” I said.
Sykes reached for his suit jacket over the back of the seat and slipped back into it. “You really think he’d be surprised?”
ARCH FERRELL LEFT HIS WIFE’S PONTIAC STATION WAGON at a filling station across the road from the Citizens Bank Building and walked back down Dillingham, back toward the river, keeping a straw hat down in his eyes and not making eye contact with the Guard troops he passed. He walked by the 260 and 261 clubs, the Original Barbecue. From across the road, he could see the weathered and beaten words on the side of a brick building advertising a slave market held on Saturdays that no one had thought to paint over since the Civil War.
Most of the buildings down on this stretch of Phenix City were just old wood-frame clip joints and Bug houses. Some of the joints on this side of town allowed blacks, and Arch passed the men in their out-of-date zoot suits and two-tone nigger shoes and felt dirty just being in their presence when they’d give him a rotten smile and stare. He knew, just fucking knew, that they now recognized him as no better than they were.
Dillingham dipped down at the bridge. Hung onto the riverbank, stuck on the lower level of a storefront, was the Bridge Grocery. He ducked inside the door just as soon as he could. His eyes had to adjust to the light, red bulbs screwed into sockets, making his vision feel like that of an animal. He heard men talking and walked past the horse-racing arcade games and the green felt tables stacked in heaps in the center of the concrete floor. He entered a back room, passing over a creaking wooden floor that almost hung right out over the water, under the level of the bridge. His eyes searched for the part of the floor he’d heard about that could spring loose like that
of a stage, rolling a drunk or beaten man out onto the banks, tumbling and rolling and falling out into the Chattahoochee.
Godwin Davis was a portly little man, not even coming up to Arch’s chest. He was bald and fat and had a constant cigar plugged into the side of his mouth. The man had an odor about him, too, of nicotine sweats and vinegar, breath as fetid as moldy cheese.
Arch looked at his own feet, the slotted floor, and stepped around broken poker chips and shards of glass, sandwich wrappers, and empty beer bottles. He was pretty sure the grocery, which hadn’t sold a can of beans since before the war, hadn’t been open since the troops arrived.
Davis grunted something to him, an affirmation maybe, and nodded him into a back room with brighter light, this coming from another red bulb over a little table, where Miss Fannie Belle sat smoking a thin brown cigar and leaning back in a seat. She smiled up at Arch, and Arch looked to Davis, never thinking in a million years that these two could be fifty yards away without trying to kill each other. But allies were tough to find these days, and Arch understood you took what you could get.
“Counselor,” she said. Her red hair had been twisted up into a bun, and she wore big false eyelashes that looked like spider legs. In front of her were a couple rows of cards where he’d interrupted her game of solitaire. On the back of the facedown cards were naked fat women like something from Victorian times. Fannie’s shirt was low-cut, and he could make out a front latch on her pointed black bra.
Godwin Davis clamped the damp cigar in his jaw and closed the door behind him, leaving the two in privacy.
“Telephones make me nervous,” Arch said. He sat and lit a cigarette, his hands shaking as he held the match to the end.
“Nervous as a cat,” Fannie said and smiled. She had a thin scar on her lower right jaw and an oblong scar in the center of her forehead that stayed white against fair, sun-flushed skin. She wore a pink, fitted shirt – like one made for a little boy – and skinny black britches of some sort that matched that pointed black bra.
“I hear a click. A double click at home. They’re listening to me. You know that sound? When you ring off, but they’re still there and don’t know you’re still there? I’d watch your phones, too. Don’t trust anyone.”
“Didn’t see you at the fights,” Fannie said, starting up her game of solitaire again and flipping over cards with a quick snap of fingers with long red nails. “That’s a first. You know, I used to date a fighter. They called him the Canvas Cannibal. Ain’t that a riot?”
She looked up over the cards with her slow, lazy eyes and drowsy smile, but Arch didn’t smile back. The smile only made him more nervous.
“I want order restored, Fannie,” he said, blowing smoke up into the ceiling. He alternated softly pounding his fist and tapping the table with his fingers. “I want my town back under control. I want men in Montgomery to quit fucking with this town like a political poker chip.”
Fannie smiled more, and he couldn’t goddamn well tell if she was agreeing with him or the cards. But then he knew it was the cards as she picked them all up – finished with the game – and shuffled the naked ladies into a neat pile.
Arch gritted his teeth and slouched back into the chair, his arm hanging loose at his sides.
“You’re the only one who understands,” Arch said. “You hear me? You’ve sunk too much into Phenix. You know we got to have order. You think Hoyt and Jimmie care anymore? They’re too old. They don’t understand what all this means or are just too stupid to care. Listen to me. This is a battle. A fucking battle.” Arch leaned over the small square table and made an invisible line with his index finger. “Lines have been drawn, but now these RBA men and Pat’s son are hiding under the governor’s skirt. They don’t want to come out and fight fair.”
Fannie shook her head and shrugged. She plucked at her pink top with the tips of her taloned fingers. “Boy, it’s hot.”
“Are you listening?”
She stopped plucking and placed the cards back into the pack. She looked over the table at Arch and said: “Next year, they’ll be just a memory.”
“I don’t have till fucking next year,” Arch said, pointing at Fannie with the end of his cigarette. “They’re gunning for me. This crazy Guard general and this man Sykes. They want to make a statement. They will remove me from office and they want me for Pat’s murder. They need someone and they want me. They’re gonna fuck this scapegoat silly.”
Elbows in all four corners of the table had worn the green top white. Fannie ran her hand over the smooth spots, keeping the little brown cigar in the corner of her mouth. She pulled it out, examined the tip, and then tucked it back into her molars like a man.
“Tell me this,” she said. “Where were you?”
“When?”
“When Patterson was killed.”
“You know where I was.”
“Hell, I know. Talking to Silas Garrett on the telephone at the exact fucking minute the trigger was pulled. Damn convenient, Arch.”
“I wouldn’t doubt Si Garrett’s word if I were you.” Arch’s hand found a spot on the table, his smooth, worn place, and rubbed it, working his fingers in and out of the bleached color, studying the design like an ancient map. “He’s a fine man. What about you, Fannie?”
Fannie pulled the cigar from her red lips and just stared at him, reeking of perfume.
“People say someone hired a button man from out of state. Chicago. Las Vegas. Or Miami. Don’t you have a place down in Miami?”
She leaned back into the creaking chair, studied Arch’s face, and set her feet on top of the table. She unbuttoned a single button and used the material of her shirt to fan herself, giving Arch a better view of the black lace.
Arch wiped his brow and returned the stare. Fannie Belle laughed. The red light was giving him a headache, making him feel like they were underwater.
“People are talking,” Arch said. “People are lying. These men, these men who don’t know and understand Phenix City, are listening. They don’t care about what’s true. People look at me different. They stare. Niggers on the street look at me like I’m some kind of joke. They used to get off the goddamn sidewalk and let me pass.”
Her cigar smoke floated up and burned into the low light of the single bulb. She shook her head and looked at Arch. “Since when do you care what niggers think?”
Arch stood and began to pace. He had sweated deep into his dress shirt and his back felt wet. “Did I tell you my wife is seven months pregnant? We need control.”
“You don’t need to tell me what we need,” she said. “Everyone is squirming and squealing like a nest of rats.”
She stopped his pacing cold with a quick motion of her left hand holding him between his legs. Arch looked at her and blinked several times as if trying to right his vision.
“Hoyt and Jimmie have grown fat and lazy and are useless in this war,” Arch said. “I’ve heard they’ve thrown in the towel and gone with Pat’s son.”
“War?” she said, still holding him at his crotch. “Goddamn. All the Guard can do is walk the streets and pose for pictures. Have you seen one clip joint shut down? Get yourself together, Arch, and go take a fucking bath. I’m handling this now.”
“You need help.”
She kneaded him with one hand and pulled the cigar from her mouth with the other. She held him tight in her grip, and, as she smoked, Arch tilted his head, amazed at the way she could take care of two things with such little effort.
“I’ve got help.”
“Fuller ain’t enough,” Arch said.
She unzipped his fly and reached in and touched him through his drawers. Arch closed his eyes. But just as quickly, she let go and pulled the cigar from her mouth and crushed it into the ashtray. She stood and put her hand on Arch’s shoulder.
The cigar smoldered in the cut glass.
“I’m not talkin’ about Fuller,” Fannie said, a smile slicing up to her pointed ears in the red light. “I’m talking about sending a mess o
f messages Western Union. You understand, don’t you? I know you do, Arch. Because you’re a goddamn American hero.”
BERT FULLER PUNCHED ON HIS HEADLIGHTS WHEN THEY hit Crawford Road, and they drove away from Phenix City and out toward Seale and into the country. Reuben reclined in the patrol car’s seat while Fuller made some calls on his radio to the sheriff’s office and then hung up the microphone.
“Where we headed?” Reuben asked, arm hanging out the window. The wind seemed hotter than the air when they were parked.
“Cliff’s.”
“I don’t want to go to Cliff’s.”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
They passed groupings of ragged shanties on eroded pieces of land and long stretches of cotton just planted. A few of the farmers had roadside stands that were closed up for the night but still advertised with hand-painted signs for corn, field peas, squash, and boiled peanuts, even though corn and peas wouldn’t be in for some time.
Reuben reached under his seat for the bottle of the homemade liquor Fuller had brought along and, after taking a long pull, passed it on to the assistant sheriff. Fuller smacked his lips and said: “That could peel the paint on a barn door.”
“Or make you blind.”
“Pussy will make you blind, too.”
“I’m worn out.”
“Naw, you ain’t,” Fuller said, slowing and turning down an unmarked dirt road and under a tunnel of pecans growing along a slatted fence. They passed a burned-out car and another stretch of plowed-under land and then took another turn, the headlights cutting through the darkness on a moonless night like going into a long, endless cave.
“You know what ole Hank used to say about the moon.”
“What’s that?”
“Said the moon was hiding on account of its sadness. How’d that man think of that?”
“He was a drunk.”
“He was one of the best friends I ever had and the best goddamn singer that ever came out of the state of Alabama,” Reuben said when Fuller stopped the car and turned off the ignition, the words coming out louder in the quiet than he’d intended than over the motor.