Ravens

by George Dawes Green

  He bought a bottle of water and went out, and was embraced again by the heat. He leaned against the Tercel, and waited.

  He knew he should get back to patrolling. But patrolling didn’t seem possible now. Not even possible. He thought, I have to do this. There was a new woman coming through the lot, and he guessed she was a career woman. She was wearing flats, and her legs were strong. He predicted she’d move briskly. She might not even stop for a cart. She might be content with one of those baskets you pick up inside the door. When he moved to meet her, he moved quickly.

  But unexpectedly she lollygagged, gazing at the patio suites. He had to cut his speed down to an amble. But then she went quickly again, and he had to hurry, and altogether their duet was ratchety, graceless. At the door, they nearly collided.

  She stepped back to make way for him.

  He said, “No, please.”

  She not only gave him a smile — her eyes lingered appraisingly. Then she went in, and he went in after her. He bought a can of anchovies.

  But he didn’t take it right to checkout. He thought maybe he could find a way to talk to her.

  He found her in Dairy. He thought he might ask about how to read expiration dates. He put his head down and approached, but at the last moment he knew he couldn’t go through with it, so he veered off. He grabbed a half-pint of sour cream and booked it out of there. These doorway encounters he could handle pretty well — but talk to these women? No chance. Anyway, who had the time? No time for socializing and romance. He had work to do.

  Shaw decided to give the Boatwrights a little R&R, in honor of how smoothly Mitch had handled the cop. He asked them what they did for fun, and Jase spoke up: “You know what’s cool? Seining. Can we go seining?”

  So they all got into the Liberty, with Shaw behind the wheel. He eased through the crowd of folks, and then down Oriole Road, with Trevor and a couple of bodyguards right behind them on motorcycles. Trailing the bodyguards were the photographers. It made for a strange slow cortege: Liberty, bodyguard, paparazzi, cruising down Oriole Road.

  They took Robin Street, to Altama Avenue. They passed the bowling alley and Willie’s Wee-Nee Wagon and Tiger-Wheels Customizing.

  Then abruptly Shaw turned onto a side street.

  The bodyguards blocked out the photographers, and Shaw stepped on the gas and took a hairpin curve fast. Jase laughed and Patsy’s eyes lit up. The Liberty squealed down Cate Street onto Habersham and suddenly they were free.

  They drove over to Nell’s. She came out on her front portico with a cat in her arms, and Shaw called to her, “Hey, come on, we’re going seining.”

  “I better not. Me in a bathing suit? I’d scare your dinner away.”

  But he cajoled and got the Boatwrights to cajole as well, and at last she said, “Oh, what the hell. Just give me a second — lemme feed these devils.”

  Sunday afternoon in the deep South. Pair of black bugs on the windshield, getting it on. Nell’s garden had an old clawfoot tub for a birdbath, wheelbarrows and cats and yellow blooming roses, and Shaw told Tara, “I see why you love this place so much.”

  Tara wouldn’t look at him.

  Nell got in and they drove over to Uncle Shelby’s to borrow a seining net. Shaw got to meet Shelby’s little girl MacKenzie. A little dimpled charmer, with the same huge voracious gaze as her cousin Tara had, as her grandmother had. Shelby’s big house was impressive. Shall I buy it, Shaw thought, when the money comes in? Or better, buy the house next door? Then on Wednesday evenings, Tara and I can take our kids plus Shelby’s kids to Bible study in a single car. And on Saturdays we’ll play golf, Shelby and I, and in the evenings he and his wife Miriam will visit us on our back porch, and drink Madeira or mojitos, and watch the sunset over the marsh. And discuss real estate and school board elections.

  I could do that. I could be content with a life like that.

  They borrowed two seine nets from Shelby, and took the causeway over to St. Simon’s Island, and went to a little beach near the village. The Boatwrights carried the nets toward the water, while Shaw hung back and removed his thunderbelt and .32, and stashed them under the driver’s seat. Then he followed the others over the sea wall to the narrow strip of sand. The tide was perfect. Tara had already stripped to her bikini, and she and Nell were unrolling one of the nets. Shaw watched as they hauled it into the water. Nell with her get-it-done grace. As she kicked into the sea, she called out: “Crabs and shrimpies! Trust your Aunt Nell! Get into this net and I promise I’ll make a tasty sauce for you!”

  Tara held the far end of the net, taking the deeper route. Compared to her grandmother, she seemed fragile. Tall, thin, a reed in the water. The swells were strong and she struggled to hold her pole straight. Shaw thought her beauty unbearable.

  He asked Mitch, “Should we take that other net?”

  “You go with Jase. I’m kind of wore out.”

  “All right. You up for it, Jase?”

  “OK.”

  So Shaw and Jase walked the net a hundred yards down the beach, then headed into the ocean. Soon Shaw was above his waist. He slipped once in the wet sand and went under, but managed to keep his grip on the pole. When he came up sputtering, Jase was laughing. “Shaw, can you even swim?”

  “Pull! Let’s go!”

  After they had dragged the net a hundred feet through the ocean, Jase held up and became the pivot; Shaw turned the arc and they waded ashore. They’d done OK. A dozen brown shrimp and three softshell crabs along with a couple of throw-away puffers. Jase showed him how to disentangle the crabs without getting pinched. The sky reared up above them, rose and lavender, a paradise of thoughtlessness.

  Meanwhile, down the way, Nell and Tara were picking through their own net. Shaw could hear Nell addressing the crustaceans: “Fools! Suckers! I can’t believe I talked you into this! Bet you’ll be more careful next time, won’t you?”

  As soon as the net was clear, they took it back out again. Shaw watched them.

  Jase said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “How come you always answer when he calls?”

  “Who? You mean Romeo? I have to.”

  “Why? ’Cause he’s your friend?”

  “It’s not about that. If I don’t answer he’ll think something bad’s happened. Then he’ll do something bad right back to your family.”

  “Would he kill us?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  The kid spoke with a fierce intensity: “Because we’ll do what you want anyway.”

  Shaw just looked at him. Honored by the kid’s devotion — but also a little wary of it. “Well Jase, I know I can count on you. But the others —”

  “They won’t fight you,” said Jase. “Even Dad. He won’t fight you no more.”

  “Romeo thinks he will.”

  “Romeo doesn’t know us! You should stop talking to him. Tell him we don’t need him. We’re fine by ourselves, so tell him to go away.”

  Shaw was thinking of how to answer, how to be gentle but still let the kid know that Romeo wasn’t going anywhere. But just then he saw Tara come out of the ocean, dragging the net, carrying the last sunlight on her skin, and his powers of speech left him.

  Tara caught him looking at her. It was no surprise: she knew he wanted her. So now he’s a lewd son of a bitch; who cares, so what else is new?

  What she wasn’t prepared for, however, was the little thrill that his watching gave her. A needlelike pleasure in her stomach, just below her ribcage. And she realized she was arching her back a little as she came out of the water, to show off her figure.

  She dragged her end of the net out of the surf. She and Nell dropped their poles, and squatted and went to work, tossing their catch into a bucket. She’d known this was coming. She’d felt the tremors a while ago, and now it was opening up inside her, and in this way also she thought she betrayed the Lord; defied Him and grew apart from Him.

  Burris went to the station to begin his shift, but as he pas
sed the dispatch desk Rose Whittle declared — with offhand cruelty, not even looking up from the trimming of her cuticles, “Chief wants to see you, Burris. He’s in with the Lieutenant. Good luck.”

  The Lieutenant’s office was a century old, and the ceiling was sixteen feet high. The smells were of ancient varnish and stucco and moldering police files, of termite crap and generations of tobacco smoke. Generally Burris liked coming here. The Lieutenant was fat and moved slowly and was nearly as old as Burris himself, and remembered far more. And he loved to talk; you could wallow in his talk. You might come to discuss some little complication in a DUI case and then wander out a couple of hours later with a headful of details about the ’71 Cal Humphries murder, or the mad misrule of Chief Carswell in the eighties — and then realize you’d forgotten even to mention the case you went in for.

  But today it wasn’t just the Lieutenant. The Chief was there too, and he had a nasty twinkle in his eye. “Hello, Corporal.”

  “Hello, sir.”

  “Guess who called me a little while ago?”

  A guessing game. Great.

  “Sir, I just don’t know.”

  “Mitch Boatwright called me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Wondering why the hell you were harassing him at his church.”

  Christ. Better hunch my shoulders. Get low here, try to get as gray and mouselike as possible. “Well sir. I just —”

  “At his church? You couldn’t wait till the service was over?”

  “Well, I did wait, yes sir, but —”

  “I’m sorry, is he a liar? I wouldn’t have thought Mitch Boatwright was a big liar.”

  “If I could explain. I did go up to him at church this morning —”

  “I thought you just said you didn’t.”

  “I came up after the service. So if he says —”

  “In front of three hundred parishioners, you accosted the man —”

  “I spoke privately, sir.”

  “Corporal.” Sharply, crisply, as one might admonish a wayward pup. “You intend to keep interrupting me all day?”

  “No sir.”

  “I’m trying to ask you a question.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’m trying to ask you, Corporal, why you couldn’t wait until Mr. Boatwright was at home?”

  “At home? Well. There’s all those people there. There’s TV trucks and all. I didn’t want to raise a ruckus —”

  “You ever think of using the phone?”

  “Well, the business I had with him was kind of delicate.”

  “Delicate? He says you grilled him.”

  “I wouldn’t say grilled.”

  “Oh no?”

  “And we didn’t talk at church. I arranged to meet him later, at the Huddle House.”

  “I understand that, Corporal. I’ve been informed of that. I think it’s terrific. Great police work, taking your interrogation out of the church. Although the Huddle House, now, is that really your best choice for a ‘delicate’ interrogation?”

  “Well I didn’t feel —”

  “Please don’t interrupt. Mr. Boatwright says you wouldn’t let him leave? He says you made all these accusations, and you weren’t even in uniform, and you were acting a little crazy, he says, and you were —”

  “I didn’t make any accusations, sir. I was trying to protect him, not to —”

  “May I finish?”

  “Yes sir. I’m sorry sir.”

  Long pause, harrowing. The Chief glanced at the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant hung his head sadly.

  Said the Chief, “Mr. Boatwright says you’ve got this notion that Shaw McBride is extorting money from him. Is that what you think?”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “But now you’ve changed your mind?”

  “Well, now I’m not sure what —”

  “This was another of your little half-cocked schemes?”

  “I did have genuine reason for concern. I had a tip.”

  “Ah,” said the Chief. “A tip! And what might that tip have been, Corporal?”

  “Well, that Shaw McBride didn’t even know about the jackpot till after the Boatwrights won it.”

  The Chief glowered. “That’s it? That’s what you got?”

  “Yes. I thought I had to check it out. But, well, I talked to Mr. Boatwright and now I think there was probably no merit to it.”

  “You mean your ‘tipster’ was lying?”

  “It’s possible. But still I had to check it out.”

  The Chief let out a sigh of exasperation.

  “Burris, let’s get something straight. Have I ever told you not to check out tips?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t mean that. I meant —”

  “I sometimes wonder, Corporal, when I’m talking to you, if I should even be in the room. I mean, as you seem to be able to carry out the whole conversation without my help at all. You imagine I say something, and you answer, and then you imagine I say something else, and you reply to that. I’d appreciate it if now and then you’d check in with me, to see if what you think I’m saying bears any correspondence to what I really am saying. How about that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “In this city, Corporal, we’re very big about checking out tips. But we try to do it without making one of our oldest families feel like they’re the subject of some kind of crazy witch hunt.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The Chief then turned to the Lieutenant. “What are your thoughts here, Jim?”

  The Lieutenant looked uneasy. His eyebrows flew out jaggedly from his brow. He said, “Chief, I think you hit the nail right on the head.”

  “Good,” said the Chief.

  “Though in fairness, it was a sticky situation, and Burris was only trying his best, you know, and —”

  “Oh, that’s true,” said the Chief. “I have to give you that, Corporal. You always do ‘try your best’.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You try your damnedest.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But next time? How about consulting with one of us or one of the detectives before you follow these leads. OK?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “ ’Cause if you don’t? I will fire your ass, and I don’t give a damn if you’ve vested your goddamn pension or not. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can go.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  “Catch some drunks for us, OK, Deppity Dawg? That’s something you do very well.”

  Tara took a shower to wash the sand off, and then retreated to her room. She looked at her email. More of the deluge. Kudos and congratulations by the thousands. She kept scrolling through the list, though she didn’t know what she was seeking. A note from Clio? Though had she found one, she wouldn’t have been able to read it.

  Then an address caught her eye.

  A message from Dad. Posted just a few minutes ago. She tapped OPEN.

  Hon I’m going to tell the fbi. Ive been thinking a lot. I don’t trust that burrus. I know i did the right thing lying to him, but the fbi wont be fools. Theyll track the calls that Shaw makes. They got gps on cell phones now so therfore theyll find Romeo easy and catch him. And shaw too. They’ll kill them clean. But if we wait till soembody makes a mistake or Romeo goes crazy or some reporter guesses something we will all die can’t sit and wait for that. I love you more than the world. The BIBLE says watch ye, stand fast in the faith, be strong.

  It wasn’t just fear that rose up in her then, but anger also. She hit REPLY and wrote:

  Dad,

  The FBI, they screw up all the time. People get killed. If you tell them, you’ll get US killed! Daddy, dont! if they make one mistake! we will LOSE. But if we play along with Shaw and let him have the money we’ll be OK. He wont hurt us. If he hurts us, he knows he’ll lose everything, but if we push him he’ll have nothing to lose.

  Dad, I know how much you hate him. I hate him worse. When he opens his mout
h I get sick. He thinks now hes some kind of prophet but people only love him for the money and hes a coward. But once he gets the money he’ll try to run and that’s when we’ll call th4e FBI. He won’t get away! I know its frustrating doing nothing, but please, Dad, please don’t try to tell the FBI. Please please please.

  She reread, made a few corrections, deleted the number 4. She put please please please in caps.

  She knew that by writing this she was doing exactly what Shaw would want. She was even starting to sound like him: I know it’s frustrating.

  She pressed SEND.

  She waited. Every few seconds, a new email came in from one of her fans. She didn’t touch them. She stared at the screen.

  Finally she got a reply:

  OK

  As she was looking at this, she heard some commotion outside. A flurry of flashbulbs.

  She cracked the curtain. A crowd had gathered around Bill Phillips, the man with ‘reflex sympathetic dystrophy’. He was no longer in his wheelchair; he was walking — sort of. With someone on either side to steady him. And he went only a few steps before they eased him back into the chair.

  The folks loved it though. They shouted “Praise the Lord!” and looked toward the house and called to him, “Shaw!” “Father!” “Father, come see this!” “Praise the Lord!”

  Tara felt another wave of anger.

  Now they worship him?

  She lay down in her bed. She felt as though she had not slept in weeks. But as soon as she shut her eyes she had a vivid picture of herself stepping out of the ocean, with Shaw McBride watching her.

  She forced her eyes open again.

  Out in the yard the pilgrims were calling his name: “Shaw!” “Shaw!” “Father!”

  Her eyes fell shut again. She was on the beach, coming into Shaw’s arms. She had no strength to resist him. The power he held over her life had damaged her. She imagined him lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around him, with her head against his chest so she could hear the beating of his heart, and his cock was inside her. She started touching herself, feathering her clitoris with two fingers. She couldn’t stop; she needed to touch herself while she thought of his strength, and she was trembling and bathed in sweat, and as she started to climax she could hear all those voices outside.