The Bird Boys

by Lisa Sandlin

  By quitting time she was back in the office, inserting the twenty-seven names she’d gotten from the realtors into a file folder. She printed on its tab Homebuyers. Swelled with satisfaction, she rolled some paper and carbons into the Selectric and typed it up. Twenty-seven homebuyers, and one of them could be Rodney Bell.

  There wasn’t a Rodney or a Bell on the list—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t here under a different name. Xavier Bell had been right to mention invisibility. Family trait.

  Nothing more she could do today.

  But Delpha lingered, her pencil doodling across a yellow pad of names. If Homebuyers didn’t pan out, she would check out old New Orleans phone books and city directories at Tyrrell Public Library. And if they didn’t find a shop that had had a proprietor named Bell, they would need to have another meeting with their client.

  Then Phelan could ask him what kind of strange game he and his brother were playing.

  She was only paid to answer the phone from eight to five, but a little extra time wouldn’t hurt anything. Delpha climbed the few steps up to Tyrrell Public Library. Had been a church at one time, anybody could see that. Its windows were arched, the largest ones glorious stained glass: pictures of flowers, maybe, or shells, blocks of grass and sky and ruby shapes, a crown and a cross. The library drew her, and not just for the books—for the building, rough limestone blocks, a towered and turreted castle fit for a river king. Close behind the castle ran the slow brown Neches.

  The pine floor creaked. She crossed the fan of late sunlight let in by the stained glass, picked one of the little paper slips. She searched the card catalog for a book by that photographer Tom had mentioned. Jotted down a call number.

  A little shyly, Delpha went to see her acquaintance, Angela, behind the counter. This was another reason she liked the library. Angela had acted like Delpha’s friend, someone Delpha wasn’t assigned to as in prison, and for Delpha their interaction had been novel and pleasant. She steeled herself to deal with a change, but mini-skirted Angela either hadn’t read the newspaper’s police stories, or she had her mind set on higher matters.

  She snagged Delpha’s scrap of paper with the call number listed and turned it around. “Just a minute,” she murmured, “lemme do a little job training here. That’s Opal, and she’s got a lot to learn.” She pointed a frosted white fingernail at a girl built like a teapot, her little breasts stacked on top of a midriff-roll stacked on top of apple-round hips.

  “See this call number? Find that book on the shelf. If it’s not there, see if it’s checked out, and if it is, then help her find another book by that same author. Or look on the re-shelve cart. Got all that?”

  The girl nodded and disappeared.

  Angela beamed. She was looking especially gratified, peppy, and notable this evening in a pink-and-orange striped, spaghetti-strapped mini-dress accented by a cloth blossom tacked to a strap. Sparkly royal-blue shadow from her eyebrows to her lids traveled on around her black-lined eyes with the spiky false eyelashes. Her orange, vanilla, rose-petal, honeycomb perfume transferred itself as if on a dolly across the front desk and tipped over onto the spot where library patrons stood.

  “That’s some perfume.”

  Angela smiled wider, extended the white fingernail again and tapped it in the air. “Ding dong, Avon calling. I’ll be happy to put you down for one. It’s brand new. Called Sweet Honesty.”

  “Maybe next week,” Delpha said. She did not sound convincing, but Angela didn’t appear to notice.

  “Guess what.” The royal-blue magnificences twinkled from within.

  “What.”

  “Mrs. Samson’s husband fell off their roof and broke his hip, and she went on and retired early. Now I’m sorry for that, but guess who the new reference librarian is.”

  “I’m guessing that’s you, Angela. Good for you.”

  “Thank you!” She preened toward Delpha. “The reference job should have gone to Mrs. Tilly, but she likes sitting still on her special pillow, so it’s mine. I get a quarter-an-hour raise, and when people call and ask questions, I get to go and look up all the answers. I mean, mostly I have to take their phone number and call them back. But then I tell them the answers.” Her smile, aided by white, even teeth more than the champagne lipstick, was triumphant.

  “You mean people could call up and get you to find out things without paying you a dime?”

  “Yes sirree, that’s what I mean. Delpha, honey, you could call any reference librarian in this country and they’d help you! But not with a ton of stuff. I’ll help callers, but I won’t do kids’ homework for ’em.” Angela swerved her head right, then hard left. Her spaghetti-strapped shoulders moved along, causing the blossom strap to droop. She hooked it back in place.

  “Just like, say, who won the World Series in 1922 or…or whether there’s albino polar bears. Like that.”

  “Lemme ask you something.”

  Angela looked charmed.

  “So you mean…could you call up a reference librarian in some other town and have them answer a question? Say, a local question.”

  “A course! That’s what I’m telling you. That’s what we do. There’s…there’s a whole army of reference librarians out there—every town in America.”

  An army. This was something worth thinking about. “I’m glad you got the job.”

  “Me, too. It’s an advancement. You interested in advancement?”

  Six months ago, such an idea would have been a jeer. To advance, you had to have somewhere to advance to. Coming out of the prison gates, Delpha did not have a where. Now she had Phelan Investigations, and she had performed an outside-the-office search single-handed. Was that advancement?

  “I don’t know. What could you advance to next?”

  Angela’s finger crooked. Delpha leaned into the solid block of Sweet Honesty. One set of black lashes swept shut and opened again. “I wanna run this place,” Angela said.

  Hearing a heart’s desire, Delpha warmed. “You like books that much,” she said. “I knew somebody just like that once.”

  The royal-blue eyelids compressed. “Honey, what I like is organizing. Oops, here she comes.”

  Delpha read the spines of the books Opal offered and selected one. “I’ll take this one with me.”

  Angela nodded solemnly. “All right. Next, ask the patron if there’s anything else you can do for them.”

  The girl’s eyes shifted to Delpha. Delpha shook her head.

  “Opal,” Angela said, “it’s best if the words actually come out of your mouth.”

  Delpha left them to their training. She gathered her purse and the one big, flat photography book Opal had found for her. Glancing up, she saw by the wall clock that she was late for dinner. She hoped that the Rosemont residents had not cleaned the trough.

  XII

  PHELAN SNAPPED STRAIGHT upright in the front seat of his Chevelle, deeply knowing that the black car he’d seen in the parking lot the night before had been a Mercury Montego. His second thought, hazier but pinching, was that he had dozed off. The car now noisily beetling across the parking lot was not that dark sedan—it was a white van that backed up to the loading dock and cut its lights.

  He walkie-talkied Crandall to call the cops.

  To Crandall’s excited When, man, when?, he said, Now.

  Scrunched down in the seat, Phelan expected some crony to exit the back door, having stayed behind at closing. But two guys sashayed straight to the door and unlocked it with keys one of them took from a pocket. He watched while one heaved a large box out to the van. He shoved that inside, and then they went back for more. Six boxes, and boxes meant the stockroom. As they passed under the wall-light on the building, though, the loaders looked white. No hurry, not pushing themselves. When both of them disappeared through the door, one after the other, Phelan slid out of his car. He had on a black t-shirt and low tops and didn’t make much noise as he loped over to the van, jacked the keys, and stashed them in a front pocket. He’d already scoped out
a shadowed place between the end of the dock and the building wall, and he hunkered there.

  One robber plodded backward with a refrigerator slanted on a dolly and the two wrestled it into the van, dolly and all. The other robber went back in with a gym bag and after a while strolled out again, set the bag on the dock, and relocked the store. He turned, couple of gold chains around his neck glittering in the wall light, and drew out a handgun from the gym bag, long-barreled piece of work, maybe a S&W .22. Laid one forearm over the other and aimed the long barrel at his accomplice.

  Adrenalized, Phelan flattened himself against the wall.

  Did not think it was gonna go this way. Absolutely did not. His gun was back at the office. Way to go, Tom. Way to quit Boy Scouts when you were eleven. Phelan Investigations’ abundantly un-foolproof plan had run along these lines: observe, get descriptions, a license number, call cops, report to manager, collect paycheck. No shooting.

  The guy with the long barrel drew down on his accomplice. A second later, pulled the trigger.

  The gun said, “Boom!” and recoiled.

  The partner’s hands flapped to his chest, then collapsed downward one at a time, like two gloves dropped off a parapet. He staggered. Lurched step by step over to the gym bag, pulled out another weapon, snubbier, maybe a .38. He drifted down to a crouch, wobbled, and shot the first guy back.

  #1—in and out of the glow of light over the door—stumbled backward, ambled around, tripped and skudded to one knee. Fired.

  #2 ducked as he shuffled a sloppy zigzag pattern, his feet stopping almost at Phelan’s head, at the dock’s end. He trudged in a circle for a few turns then lumbered forward. Sank onto the dock and rolled once lumpily, like a Long John donut onto a plate, hoisted himself up, and fired.

  The first guy slouched over to him and on the third try nudged #2’s .38 aside, and executed him. Muzzle to skull. Click.

  Dropped his gun back in the bag, said, Th’ow it in, man.

  The other guy tossed his, clunk of metal on metal. Flashes of a lighter. Red dots appeared. Holding the smoke, then letting out clouds that drifted toward Phelan, who’d known who they were soon as the gun said “BOOM!”

  The snack bar boys.

  After a while, one giggled. Then the other giggled. Two grand larcenists at leisure.

  Phelan walked out of the dark and into Looney Tunes.

  The two boys jumped. Red dots arced to the ground. One of them ran in place for a few seconds before his feet grabbed purchase and he leapt off the dock and scrambled for the van. The other, minimally more coordinated, snagged the gymbag and beat him to the passenger seat. Doors slammed.

  Then the van instantly did not peel out.

  Phelan leaned against the dock behind it and slapped a mosquito drilling his neck. Weird. His very first job, he gets scratched by a raccoon and has to shoot a cottonmouth water moccasin. This one, he sits on his ass and lets people catch themselves.

  Stay in that van, he thought.

  The driver’s door flew open so violently it hit its extension and boomeranged back to crush the boy’s leg. A loud Fuck!, and they both managed to break for it. Maintaining their genius status, the two didn’t take off in different directions, the thing Phelan was most hoping they wouldn’t do, but started an arm-pumping, high-kneed gallop shoulder to shoulder across the parking lot. They were not track stars. Phelan caught them in twenty yards, two fistfuls of t-shirt, clipped one and stepped on his back to make him stay down. With the other he traded t-shirt for neck and squeezed so tight the boy went limp.

  “Hey man, you know. Hey man…” the one on the ground whimpered.

  “Stay down on that pavement, Snack Boy.”

  The kid kicked listlessly at Phelan, no hope of reaching him unless his leg developed elastic properties. The one he had by the neck rallied to flail backward at him. Aided by beginner’s luck, a heavy ring whacked Phelan in the mouth. The sorry dance went on for all of ten seconds, until Phelan put his weight on the downed one’s back and head-locked the other one.

  When the red whirlies screamed into the lot, they found a three-part still life. One flat boy, Phelan, and one dangling boy.

  “Where’s your gun, Ace?” a young, blond cop asked him after he and his partner, a black guy about the same age, had handcuffed the two boys and stuffed them into the cruiser. The partner appeared to be memorizing the P.I. license Phelan had presented them with.

  Phelan might be bitterly berating his weaponless self, but that evaluation was for private consumption only. Hiking his chin, setting hands on his hips, he said, “Don’t need a gun for boys.”

  The cop gaped at him. Little yellow hair-pagodas flared out from under the cap. “You kiddin’ me? Gun works good with boys.”

  His young partner tipped a finger toward the blood leaking down Phelan’s chin, snorted, then returned to the license. “Johnny,” he murmured to the other cop, whose gaze turned downward.

  Phelan swiped his chin with the back of his hand. Aiming to project a quality of helpfulness, he offered, “Here’s the keys to their getaway. They left doobies up on the dock. If you’re interested.” He dug in his pocket and tossed over the van’s keys. The cops didn’t even try to catch them. They hit the pavement.

  They were examining Phelan, shiny-eyed.

  “I seen you before at the station,” said the white one. “You’re—you’re Chief Guidry’s nephew.”

  “Proud of it.”

  The partner handed Phelan back his license. Bent over and scooped up the keys. Shifted his weight, scratched his temple in a fakey way. “That woman that works for you…wasn’t she the one took out the kid-killer?”

  Phelan sloughed the appearance-of-helpfulness. “So what?”

  The blond cop raised a hand. “Hey, we’re just, you know, asking. But hey, right on.”

  The black one side-eyed his partner. “Yeah, Right on’s all we meant.”

  Pagoda-hair jumped in again. “But look…did we…uh…hear something about that not being her first 187? Another one, you know, way before our time—”

  “So?”

  “Sergeant Fontenot said it’s true.”

  Phelan wasn’t saying anything.

  “Aren’t you kinda…you know, nervous? I mean, man, if she wants a raise, you better give it to her.” The young cop’s cheeks puffed, then flattened at Phelan’s continued silence, but his face twitched with the strain of not laughing.

  “My grandmother used to tell me,” Phelan drawled, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. I bet y’all’s grandmas told you the same fucking thing.”

  Both cops nodded, the white one begrudgingly.

  “Less y’all got a questionnaire for me to fill out, I’m calling it a night, officers.”

  They waved him on, slid into their car, and jet-reversed to the dock, where the blond cop bagged the doobies. Then the cruiser hauled ass with the snack boys. Phelan stowed away his license and headed for his car. His cut lip smarted. He drove around to the front of the store, where Crandall flung himself out of his Pinto, steaming to know what had happened. Phelan obliged him with the long version.

  The short version was he’d just paid off Miles Blankenship. Or would have, if not for Delpha’s pride. OK, let that go. Short version was that Phelan Investigations was about to have some jingle in its pocket. And its proprietor was about to sleep the sleep of the righteous.

  XIII

  PRESSING THE LARGE book to her chest, Delpha hurried down the library steps. Way past suppertime, and she crossed her fingers there was something left to eat.

  These days Oscar Hardy was running the kitchen for a vacationing Calinda Blanchard, owner of the Rosemont, and opinions were split on this temporary power shift. All laxness in the rules had disappeared—late-risers bemoaned the cutoff of coffee at ten a.m. sharp—but the revised supper menu included a certain number of fried chicken wings with cayenne in the batter, a sweet carrot and raisin slaw that had caused a tug-of-war, and, instead of the canned frui
t cocktail and store-bought sugar cookies Miss Blanchard favored for dessert, there had once been hallelujah red velvet cake with cream-cheese frosting.

  Delpha had a soft spot for Oscar. On the night of the afternoon she’d arrived back at the Rosemont—walking bent over in a new white blouse—he had room-serviced a generous portion of his mixed-fruit cobbler with the butter-crumbly crust. “I read the papers,” Oscar said, standing at her door, “and it look like you sure had a go-round.”

  Tonight Oscar had a problem.

  Serafin, the gimpy dishwasher, had allowed as how he liked working very much for young Señor Oscar, who hired him even though his hip was not good. Serafin liked Beaumont—no ice from the sky here, no cold wind. He had sworn he’d return in a month. He’d raised the oval medal on a chain to his lips and kissed it. His mother was eighty-three, and the Blessed Virgin would heal her or She would take her to live in heaven.

  Oscar griped to Delpha about this while he stacked up the dishes and she quietly put together a plate from what was left of dinner: no cornbread fritters or coconut sheet cake—but there was ham glazed with brown sugar mustard sauce, julienned green beans, and buttered cauliflower with a squeeze of lime. Mouth full, she heard his sad story. In the morning he’d take Miss Blanchard’s Ford and go down to the unemployment office where guys sometimes hung around, and he was not enthused. Oscar’s opinion of dishwashers was that they were like cats, either lying down on the job or slinking away without warning. “Drunk cats.” He scanned the dirty kitchen and swore.

  She swallowed several more heavenly mouthfuls, scraped up a spoonful of brown sugar mustard sauce, hearing him grouse, doing math in her head.

  “Serafin be gone a month?”

  Twenty minutes and some instruction later, a rainbow broke in Oscar’s smooth face as Delpha tied on an apron and jerked her head toward the parking lot door. He offered a reverent hand to his heart, snagged his fancy shades, clocked out, and inserted himself into an evening with unforeseen possibilities.

  Delpha ran hot water in the double stainless steel sinks, sprinkled in flakes and immersed the dirty pots, the greasy skillets, and the cake and muffin pans. They’d soak. At the sink by the corner Hobart, she scraped the stuck-on food from plates and silverware into a garbage can she’d pulled up to the counter, racked the dishes on their edges, set cups and glasses mouth-side down, silverware in a flat rack, and sent them through the dishwasher. Scraped the next tub while these washed, stacked them. This job might do her complexion some good—all that steam—but apron or not, she’d get wet and smell like bacon grease and cooked cauliflower. The concession Oscar had made to her recent wound was to line up all the tubs on the long steel counter so she wouldn’t have to lug them around, just do the job assembly-line fashion.