Blue Avenue

by Michael Wiley

  Susan and Thomas were in the kitchen. Susan had been crying but now had a fiery anger in her eyes. Thomas was pale.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Susan pointed at the kitchen sink. A decapitated cat lay in a cardboard box, her striped gray fur soaked and darkened with blood. It was Fela.

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  Susan said, ‘We heard her shriek.’

  ‘Cats don’t—’

  ‘She shrieked.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘We went to the front door,’ she said. ‘I thought maybe a possum … but she was lying on the porch. She was …’ Susan pointed at Fela to explain what she was.

  ‘That’s it?’ I said.

  She nodded.

  I held my arms open to Thomas. ‘Come here.’

  He looked at my face as though I were a stranger, turned away and stumbled out of the room. I started after him but Susan said, ‘Let him go.’

  I went to the sink and stared at the cat. The bright kitchen lights made her look cold in death. ‘Where’s her head?’

  ‘I don’t know. We looked in the bushes and on the front lawn.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘What have you gotten yourself into?’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘People don’t cut off the heads of their neighbors’ cats,’ she said. ‘This has something to do with you.’

  I guessed she was right but I looked at her like she was insane. ‘This is a sick kid pulling a sick prank. That’s all. Probably someone Thomas knows.’

  ‘Don’t you dare blame Thomas.’

  ‘I’m not blaming him.’

  ‘You said you were done with this. Eight years ago you did.’

  ‘I told you the truth,’ I said.

  ‘Because I can’t take it again. You know that.’

  ‘When did you hear Fela yowl?’

  ‘Shriek,’ she said. ‘Twenty minutes ago. A little more.’

  ‘No one was outside when you opened the door?’

  ‘Yeah, a man was dancing on the lawn with a butcher knife in his teeth. I forgot to mention him.’ She shook her head bitterly. ‘No. No one was outside. There was a car at the corner.’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  She looked angry enough to hit me but she sighed. ‘Damn it, BB, you’re doing it again.’ She followed Thomas out of the kitchen.

  I went outside and across the wet lawn, got a shovel from the tool shed, left it by the quarry pond and returned for Fela. She felt heavier dead than alive and as I carried the blood-soaked box into the dark I resisted an impulse to hug her to my chest. A couple of paces from the pond I dug through the grass and a layer of sand into the dark dirt below, and I lowered the box into the hole. I tried to pray but felt foolish, so I shoveled the sand and soil over Fela’s body and tamped the grave with my shoes and hands. My hand found a clump of clay, the kind I’d pulled from the backyard when I was a kid. The clay was soft, warm and wet, and I squeezed and kneaded it as if I was restoring circulation to a dead limb, then dug into the grave with my fingers and pulled out more.

  I carried the clay inside and washed it in the kitchen sink, the sand mixing with Fela’s blood, swirling into the drain. The bright cold kitchen dizzied me, so I took the clay to the counter and sat. In the glare of the overhead lamp I rolled a piece of it between my palms until it formed a ball. With my thumbs I shoved a hollow into one end as if there were an invisible sphincter that needed opening. I pinched and worked the clay until thin walls rose around the thumbhole.

  Thomas came in and watched me from across the room. ‘What are you doing?’ he said as if it was something dirty and embarrassing.

  I pinched a crescent moon into the rim of the bowl, then another, and said nothing.

  Thomas watched, frowning, then came to the counter and reached for the clay. I thought he meant to knock it from the counter but he scooped some into his hands. He sat at the counter with me, rolling the clay into a ball, shoving his thumbs into it. He pinched the walls thin and smoothed the exterior and interior with his fingers until he’d formed a bowl more perfect than mine.

  ‘Where’d you learn to do that?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said.

  I looked at him. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ I said.

  He nodded.

  At ten p.m. three clay bowls – one of mine and two of Thomas’s – dried on a piece of newspaper and Thomas had disappeared into his bedroom. An empty Coors bottle stood on the counter next to the bowls.

  I could drink another beer, go upstairs, climb into bed and lie awake through half the night. I could go to the sunroom, explain myself to Susan and ask her again to forgive me. Or I could go to Lee Ann’s house, pull her into bed and stick my thumb inside her like she was a ball of clay. I got up, found the telephone and dialed.

  Charles answered. ‘Hey,’ he said as if he knew it would be me.

  ‘D’you want to go to Little Vegas?’ I said.

  We drove across the river in Charles’ car, the windows wide open, the warm night air rushing in. The headlights of oncoming traffic flared on the windshield and disappeared behind us. The city had laid an ornamental rope of violet neon lights along the guardrail on the next bridge downriver, and warm purple clouds glowed on the flat water. I closed my eyes.

  ‘You should’ve shown the cat to me before you buried her,’ Charles said.

  I opened my eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘The way a man kills says a lot about him. Did the cut start on the left or right? If it started on the left and he killed from behind, which he did since no one wants to get scratched in the face by a dying cat, he’s right handed. If it started on the right, he’s a lefty. Did he do anything else to her body? Did he leave marks that tell you about his special kind of sickness?’

  ‘He didn’t leave anything. He took her head.’

  ‘It’ll turn up sooner or later.’

  ‘I know.’

  For a minute we drove without talking.

  ‘We could dig her up,’ he said.

  ‘No, sir.’

  Traffic thinned as we drove into the Westside. If we skipped the Cassatt Avenue exit we would soon be in a pine forest instead of at Little Vegas.

  I asked, ‘Do you think Christopher could have killed Belinda?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He tried to hurt her twenty-five years ago,’ I said. ‘He knew she was back in town and knew what she’d been doing.’

  ‘Give it up, BB,’ Charles said, which I guessed was his way of telling me what Christopher also had told me. Grow up.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I said.

  ‘I am.’

  Lit by overhead spotlights, Little Vegas, a brown single-story cinderblock structure with a tinted glass door, stood by itself on a piece of property next to a strip mall. A black awning stretched from the door and dim lights, manufactured to look like gas lamps, hung on either side. A stunted cabbage palm tree stood sentry along the sidewalk. A half-dozen cars and pick-ups were parked in the parking lot. A large neon sign advertised Little Vegas Gentlemen’s Club and a small sign under it said More Parking in Rear.

  A short, fat black man stood outside the door in black shoes, black linen pants and a black linen shirt unbuttoned to show graying chest hair and a thin gold chain. He gave us a look-over, said, ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ and opened the door.

  ‘Not much of a bouncer,’ I said to Charles as we stepped inside.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said.

  My eyes adjusted to the dim light. ‘Not much of a club either.’

  The floor was concrete, painted yellow and stained with beer. The walls were milk-chocolate brown. Cheap track lighting, filled with red and blue bulbs, lined the edges of the ceiling, a string of Christmas lights was tacked to the wall behind the bar and a disco ball hung at the far end of the room. There were no women in the place. A black bartender stood behind the bar. Five black men sat on stools at the bar. Two more sat at one of th
e three tables in the room. The bartender, a barrel-chested man with short hair and a neat goatee, approached Charles and me. ‘Twenty-buck cover and a two-drink minimum,’ he said.

  I smiled at him. ‘Why the cover? There’re no girls.’

  He extended a hand for our money. ‘They’ll be here in an hour or so.’

  I kept my wallet in my pocket. ‘Is Darrin here?’

  ‘Twenty bucks and a drink order,’ he said.

  I fished out the bills and ordered a Coors, Charles a vodka on ice.

  When the bartender gave us our drinks I asked again, ‘Darrin here?’

  ‘Yeah, in the back.’

  Charles said, ‘We want to talk to him.’

  ‘I didn’t think you wanted to suck his dick. What about?’

  I’d seen Charles break the bones in a man’s hands for less than that but he took a long, slow sip of his vodka and gestured the bartender close with his index finger. He whispered to him and the bartender’s head popped back an inch. He walked around the end of the bar and disappeared into a back hallway.

  ‘What did you tell him?’ I asked.

  ‘I told him who I am,’ Charles said.

  I laughed. ‘Yeah? And who’s that?’

  He laughed too and took another long drink.

  The bartender came out again a minute later and pointed at me. ‘You go on back.’ He gestured at Charles. ‘But you stay here.’

  Charles shrugged. ‘Then give me another drink.’

  The hallway led to a closed door. I knocked and opened it into an office. Darrin – a tall, thin black man with close-shaved hair – sat behind a steel desk. He was twenty-five or thirty and, as Tonya’s sister had said, he was good looking. He pointed at a chair across the desk from him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  I sat. ‘William Byrd.’

  The office smelled of ammonia the way rooms in places like this did after someone had cleaned them of the sweaty smells of sex. Behind Darrin, a window and a door faced the back parking lot. ‘I understand you’ve got questions about a couple of my girls,’ he said and I heard barely controlled rage in his voice.

  ‘Tonya Richmond and Ashley Littleton.’

  ‘But you’re not a cop?’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘I guess I’m a friend.’

  ‘Tonya and Ashley had no friends. If they did I would’ve known about them. And you sure as hell ain’t my friend.’

  I said, ‘I knew one of the other women who was killed. Belinda Mabry. I’m trying to find out what happened.’

  His rage seemed to dissolve. ‘Yeah. It’s terrible. You know I used to be with Tonya’s sister. I’ve been hurting with this. Tonya was trouble. She was heavy into coke and meth, but she was one of mine, you know? She was my baby’s aunt.’

  ‘So you pimped her to a party in Jamaica.’

  His face fell. ‘Look at me. This is what I do. I run a place you couldn’t rent as a storage locker except we’ve got girls like Tonya and Ashley who hang out here. If they’re straight enough to show up. And look at what Tonya was. If I hadn’t put her on a jet to Kingston, she would’ve been out on the highway doing it for dime rocks.’

  ‘You know what bothers me?’ I said. ‘When someone justifies himself by saying that the world’s a bad place.’

  ‘I’ve heard of you before, Mr Byrd. It seems to me you’re a hypocrite.’

  ‘I may be that,’ I said. ‘But it still bothers me. My own self-justification may even be why it bothers me.’ In his eyes I saw uncertainty, which was a kind of darkness I especially despised. I asked, ‘Did you also send Ashley Littleton to Jamaica?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s time for you to leave.’

  ‘Tell me about Belinda Mabry,’ I said.

  He stared at me silently and we listened to the music and laughter from the bar. Then he said, ‘Nothing to tell. Never met her myself.’

  ‘She was in Jamaica too.’

  He looked like I’d poked him. ‘The news says she was a nice lady. The Kingston party wasn’t for nice ladies.’

  ‘Then who asked you to send Tonya Richmond?’

  He shook his head again. ‘No, sir. I can’t tell you that. These are private people. I put Tonya on a plane and she came back. A couple weeks later she got killed. Jamaica’s got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I need to talk to whoever asked you to send her. If Belinda Mabry was there too, something bad happened at the party.’

  He nodded regretfully. ‘I’ll call and see if it’s OK for me to tell you his name.’ He picked up the phone and dialed.

  When the person on the other end answered, Darrin said, ‘I’ve got William Byrd here. He has questions about Jamaica.’ He listened uncomfortably and said, ‘He knows that Tonya was there and thinks Belinda Mabry was too.’ After another silence, he hung up and said to me, ‘I’ll give you his number.’ He opened a desk drawer, but instead of a pen and paper he pulled out a black pistol and pointed it at my chest.

  I knew I should feel fear, but I felt an old familiar calm. ‘You don’t want to do this,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. I do. Anyway I don’t have a choice.’ He motioned with the pistol barrel. ‘Get up.’

  I stood.

  ‘I’m sorry about Tonya and Ashley,’ he said. ‘About Belinda Mabry too.’

  He took me out through the back door. My feet felt light on the gravel parking lot. Charles would be inside drinking his vodka and feeling the normal effects of gravity. I said, ‘My friend will be upset when he realizes I’m gone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about him,’ Darrin said.

  He guided me around the side of the building. The short, fat bouncer had Charles’ face pressed against the cinderblock wall. Charles stood with his feet at shoulder width. His body was taut, ready to spring, but the bouncer held a silver revolver against the skin behind his right ear.

  Darrin stepped around them to an indigo-blue Silverado pick-up. He popped the locks and handed me the key. ‘You drive.’

  I shouted, ‘You all right, Charles?’

  ‘Hell, yeah,’ he said. His voice held no fear and more than a little pleasure.

  TEN

  The old money in Jacksonville lived in Ortega, a riverside neighborhood three miles from Little Vegas. Lawyers and judges lived there and doctors who left home for medical school and came back to occupy the family houses. Live oaks whose trunks had fattened on summer rains for two or more centuries shaded the yards. In the past thirty years realtors had sold houses to families from the North in almost every neighborhood in the city, but not Ortega. If Ortega families had no children who wanted their houses, they sold them to the children of friends and the neighborhood was as corrupt as ever and smelled like jasmine blossoms.

  Darrin held his gun against my ribcage and directed me through the dark streets until we reached McGirts Boulevard, which abutted the muddy banks where the Ortega River spilled into the St. Johns. When we reached a long brick wall, Darrin pointed at an open gate and said, ‘In there.’ A black driveway snaked past oaks to a large orange-brick house. Heavy branches shaded the yard against the moonlight and soft floodlights, positioned in a garden, illuminated the exterior walls from beneath as if the house were a painting that the owner wanted visitors to admire.

  On the front porch Darrin rang once and the door opened to a large man with a heavy face, straight salt-and-pepper hair and bright blue eyes. I recognized him. His name was Don Melchiori. He was a city councilman who managed to position himself next to the mayor whenever news cameras covered a press conference. The newspaper had featured him recently in a series on historical preservation.

  He looked me over and nodded into the front hall. We followed him into a living room with a white carpet, a large sofa and matching chairs upholstered in blue seersucker. An ornate mirror hung over a marble fireplace. He held his head forward and low, the way large men sometimes do as if the weight of their big skulls has become burdensome. ‘Now what’s this all about?�
� he said.

  ‘I’m William—’

  ‘I know who the hell you are,’ he said. ‘Why were you at my bar asking about Tonya Richmond?’

  ‘Little Vegas is yours?’

  He said, ‘I own a piece of it. Is this a problem?’

  ‘Only if you tell the manager to hire a girl for a sex party and then the girl gets killed.’

  He stepped close to me. He was at least a hundred pounds heavier than I was. Suddenly he butted his forehead into mine. The blow staggered me and when my vision cleared he was crossing the room to the fireplace and a warm trickle of blood was running from my head on to my cheek.

  Melchiori spoke to Darrin. ‘I’m sixty-one years old and still on a daily basis people surprise me with their stupidity. I wake up every morning and I think, “There’s nothing difficult here. Nothing complicated. A man with a third-grade education should be able to figure it out.” But inevitably before lunchtime someone manages to prove that I’ve overestimated humankind. Often it happens before breakfast. Then all day long it happens again and again and again.’

  A drop of blood fell from my cheek on to my shirt. I asked, ‘What happened in Jamaica that got Tonya Richmond killed?’

  Melchiori spun and fixed his eyes on me. He looked at my forehead and my cheek, then dug a white cloth handkerchief out of his pocket and threw it at me. ‘Don’t bleed on the carpet,’ he said.

  ‘What happened in Jamaica?’

  He came to me, got close again, and I guessed he expected me to back away but I didn’t. ‘Nothing happened in Jamaica,’ he said. ‘We had a party. We had a good time. Then we came home.’

  ‘Why was Belinda Mabry there?’

  He glanced at Darrin. ‘Same reason as the rest of us. For the party.’

  ‘And now she’s dead and Tonya Richmond’s dead and—’

  Melchiori’s fist shot into my stomach and the air punched from my lungs. I sank to the white carpet and sat looking up at the big man. A hard kick in his knees would put him on the carpet next to me. I glanced at Darrin. His gun pointed at my head.

  Melchiori said, ‘Tonya Richmond was a prostitute, the lowest kind. Sooner or later a girl like that gets killed. Belinda Mabry liked risky sex, the riskier the better. Sooner or later she had to get hurt. I don’t like coincidence any more than you do, Mr Byrd, but they both put themselves in harm’s way. That’s not coincidence. That’s bad judgment.’