Natchez Burning (Penn Cage)

by Greg Iles

  Pithy taps her fingers on the coverlet, trying to absorb this. “You don’t think Brody killed all these people himself, surely?”

  “No. Some ex-Klansmen helped him. Knoxes from across the river.”

  Pithy twists her lips so angrily that I think she’s about to spit. “I curse the day the city brought in outsiders to work at those factories after the war. Most were decent working people trying to better themselves, of course. But others . . . that’s where the Klan recruited their rank and file. They were trash. Low, unadulterated white trash. Backshooters and bombers.”

  Decades ago, David L. Cohn, a well-known Mississippi intellectual, made this case in the pages of the New Yorker (echoing Goethe from a century earlier). For all I know, Cohn used Pithy as his source. “Did you ever have any contact with the Knoxes and their cronies?”

  “Why, they accosted me right on Main Street! Outside the H. F. Byrne shoe store. Some workers from that battery plant told me I was ‘messin’ in nigra business.’ Said I’d better keep in line or else there’d be trouble. I said, ‘Jody McNeely, if Major Nolan wasn’t lying at the bottom of the Pacific, he’d knock you to the curb this instant. I can’t do that, but if I see you dragging one of those timber crosses onto my property, I’ll shoot you down and sort it out with the sheriff afterwards.’ ” Pithy lowers her head, cold fire in her eyes. “And don’t think I wouldn’t have done it. I shot my first deer when I was ten.”

  “How did they take that?”

  She laughed softly. “It plumb stumped them! The ringleader nearly swallowed his Adam’s apple. Their kind always was easily intimidated. They’re peasants in their bones, and they jump at the crack of a whip.”

  “Brody Royal won’t.”

  Her smile vanishes. “No, he won’t.”

  “What about his attorney, Claude Devereux?”

  Pithy makes a sour face. “Comparing that shyster to a snake would be a slander to the serpent.” While I try to think of how to segue into the question of my father’s past, maternal concern flows from the old woman’s eyes. “Penn, you’re your father’s son, and I love you for it. You’re a knight in shining armor, and most of the time, that’s a fine thing. But fights with men like this aren’t won in court. Snakes as old as Brody and Claude have already been trampled by most beasts of the field, and lived to tell the tale.”

  I lay my hand over her cool, dry fingers and squeeze gently. “I’ve been in darker places than you know, Pithy. I can handle myself.”

  She gazes back at me with unnerving intensity. “So has your father, dear. Tom was in combat, the same as my husband, and no man comes through that unscathed.”

  “Pithy . . . do you think there’s any chance that Dad could have been friends with Brody Royal? Even a long time ago?”

  She draws back her head, her opinion clear. “Absolutely not. The only man I even remember being close to Brody was Leo Marston, and Leo hated Tom. You know that.”

  I remember Henry saying something about Brody and Judge Marston being partners. Leo was one of the cruelest sons of bitches I knew among the parents of kids I grew up with, and if he and Royal were friends, then I can’t imagine my father spending any time at all with Brody—which squares with what Dad told me.

  Pithy’s face tightens with sudden urgency. “Why aren’t the two of you working together on this? Where is Tom? Is he hurt? Has someone kidnapped him?”

  “No, no,” I reassure her. “He’s fine.”

  But Pithy isn’t fooled. With oracular vision, she sees right through me, all the way down to my deepest fears. “Poor darling. Every son and daughter learns a heartbreaking truth someday. I only hope that in this case it’s something you can live with.”

  “Since you were Dad’s first patient, you must have known Viola Turner.”

  The old woman takes a deeper breath than she has up to now, then lets it out very slowly. “Of course I did. But don’t ask me anything you don’t want the answer to.”

  Her warning chills me, but this is half the reason I’ve come. “Did Viola and Dad have an affair, Pithy?”

  “I can’t speak to that. But your father loved that girl—that I do know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Men are simple creatures, but they’re not all the same. Many from your father’s generation, doctors especially, went a little crazy in the 1960s. They’d grown up in the corseted thirties and forties, studied day and night, married as virgins. Then suddenly the world changed. They were making money, they were respected, and women threw themselves at their feet. A lot of them rogered everything wearing a skirt. They never considered leaving their wives, of course. They just wanted sex.”

  “And Dad?”

  “Your father wasn’t one of those. Tom was a fine and faithful fellow. But that kind of man is susceptible to a different kind of temptation. You see, the women of that period—women like your mother—grew up with the biggest dose of Calvinist guilt and shame any American women ever got. And it gave them problems in the boudoir. Even faithful husbands couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be with a woman who didn’t carry that crippling burden.”

  “A woman like Viola?”

  Pithy shrugs. “Who knows? She was part Creole, and those girls were wise in the ways of love. Although not all black women were the unfettered carnal creatures of myth. Negro girls got a heavy dose of guilt in their churches, too. But some women, black or white, are just different. You’ve heard the expression ‘old soul’? Well, some women are born with a free soul. A soul that all the fire and brimstone in the world can’t hem in. I knew a girl like that in college. When women like that give themselves, they give everything, even if it kills them. And I don’t think any man alive can resist that.”

  “Was Viola like that?”

  Pithy focuses on some invisible point in space. “Yes. I felt it before I saw it. Viola was beautiful, but there was something hidden beneath her beauty. ‘Still waters run deep,’ the saying goes. And your father wasn’t the kind to miss that. No one could ever say Tom Cage was slow.”

  “Did Viola love him?”

  Pithy looks at me like a disappointed tutor. “Viola recognized Tom the same way he did her. One man in ten thousand. Lord, I was half in love with him myself. Still am, and I’m old as dirt.”

  Just as I smile again, Pithy brings me back to reality with a kick in the gut. “Are you afraid he really killed her, Penn?”

  I look deep into her watery eyes. “If I told you he did, would you doubt me?”

  “Not if it was done from mercy. For any other reason, yes. I’m counting on Tom to help me when my time comes. When the oxygen stops working, and all that’s left is to lie here suffocating . . . I’ll know it’s time.”

  I squeeze her hand again. “Has he told you he would?”

  “He doesn’t have to tell me. He’ll do the right thing when the time comes. Your father’s got more courage than any man I’ve met since my husband, the consequences be damned.”

  “Viola’s death wasn’t a mercy killing.”

  “Then Tom didn’t do it. I heard she died terribly, but I didn’t know what was true. If that’s the case, then don’t waste a minute worrying about it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know Tom. Murder’s not in him.”

  I look at the floor. “I’m not sure what’s in him anymore.”

  Pithy flicks her left hand as though at a fly. “Pooh. Not in any universe could Tom Cage murder a woman he loved. But having an affair . . . any man can do that. Woman, too.” Pithy draws her fingers from beneath my hand and takes hold of my wrist. “Let me tell you one of my secrets. When I was twenty-one, my father seduced my best friend. My mother had no idea, of course, but it happened.”

  Pithy hasn’t often revealed family secrets to me—at least not those of her family. “You knew this at the time?”

  “I found out. My friend was so despondent that she attempted suicide. Always more dramatic than efficient, was Emily. But sti
ll . . . the damage was done.”

  “Did you tell your mother about it?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, dear. I didn’t have to tell her.”

  “I thought you said she didn’t know about it.”

  Pithy gives me a sidelong glance. “For God’s sake. On some level, mothers know everything.”

  “Mama knows,” I murmur.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something a friend of mine used to say. Mama knows. It implies a sort of maternal extrasensory perception, I think.”

  Pithy smiles. “A wise friend. But my point was, you can’t give this sexual nonsense too much weight. Did the fact that Martin Luther King diddled all those women change what he did for his people? Or Franklin Roosevelt? General Eisenhower? Not one whit. Men are men, and gods are for storybooks. And if you’ve read your Edith Hamilton or Jane Harrison—or the Old Testament, for that matter—you’ll know that gods acted like men most of the time, or worse.”

  “I realize Dad’s as human as the next man.”

  “No, you don’t. And that why this hurts so much.”

  I try to pull my hand back, but Pithy holds me with surprising strength.

  “Lord, I wish you could get me a shot of cortisone. My joints are red-hot.”

  “I’m going to call Melba as soon as I leave and get you taken care of.”

  She frowns, afraid to get her hopes up. “Melba can’t prescribe, can she?”

  “She’ll get Drew to order your shot.”

  The china-blue eyes widen with gratitude. “You’re my angel, dear. You have made my day.”

  I’m your fix, I reply silently, but I say nothing. Who could deny a dying woman a little comfort?

  “I need my oxygen now,” she says. “I’m going to buzz Flora.”

  As she touches a button, I reach down to the portable cart by her bed and retrieve the mask, then carefully fit it around her head. It feeds oxygen to her nose but keeps her mouth free to talk.

  “I met Edith Hamilton at Bryn Mawr,” she says wistfully. “Did I tell you? She gave the most wonderful lecture: The Greek Way.” Pithy shivers suddenly, then takes a sip of cold tea from her bedside table. “Ugh . . . this would give a billy goat indigestion. Don’t leave yet, Penn. Let me get settled. This talk about Tom has me frazzled.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She takes several deep breaths as though trying to quell panic. “You know, sometimes . . . when I get oxygen-deprived . . . I hook up the machine, and then the gas hits my lungs . . . and I see things.”

  I suppress a smile. Pithy Nolan has always been conscious that she was named for the priestess of the cave at Delphi. She’s the third Pythia in her family, and it’s long been said that the women in the maternal line possessed “second sight,” a colloquial term for the gift of prophecy. A hundred years ago, women in New Orleans and Baltimore quietly sought out her grandmother in matters involving family decisions, believing that she had foreknowledge of the future. Pithy has told me of cases where she predicted the illnesses or deaths of certain people.

  As Flora pads into the room, I reflect on the irony of a woman of rigorous intellect believing in the idea of precognition.

  “Flo,” Pithy says. “Go down the hall to that cabinet where I keep my old jewelry and look in the bottom drawer. Bring me what’s folded up in tissue paper at the back. You know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes. I’ll get it.”

  Flora gives me a curious look as she departs, but I can’t read her meaning.

  “I knew Albert Norris,” Pithy says dreamily. “That man had a way with white people. In those days, colored men would stand off and let whites get comfortable before they approached. Albert didn’t do that. He didn’t have to. White people just naturally warmed to him. He was always in and out of white homes. Folks were mighty upset when he died. That went a long way toward turning people against the Klan across the river.”

  “I’ve heard that. You just breathe, Pithy.”

  “No . . . I want to talk. I’ve missed our little confabs.”

  “Have you heard from your son lately?”

  “Oh, Robby’s still up in Boston. He’ll never come back south again, except to bury me. He’ll sell Corinth off to some greedy carpetbagger.”

  She chuckles to keep from crying, and then her eyes close. Time passes, marked by the soft rush of labored breathing, and then Flora silently appears beside me.

  “I got it, Miss Pithy,” she whispers, as though hoping the old woman won’t hear her.

  Pithy’s eyes blink, then open and focus on me. “Give it to Mayor Cage.”

  Flora unfolds the tissue paper and hands me what appears to be a small straight razor with a sterling silver handle. I recognize the razor from seeing my father receive old-fashioned barbershop shaves as a boy, but also from more than one crime scene in Houston. Some older black and Mexican criminals tended to use them, and I knew cops who used straight razors as throw-down weapons, because they’re so easy to conceal.

  “Brody Royal gave me that as a present when we were courting,” Pithy says, as though still shocked by the idea. “Can you imagine? He said it was for my protection. In case I ever got into a tight spot. Look at the engraving on the handle.”

  Examining the silver handle, I make out the faint inscription, “A Lady’s Best Friend,” in fine script.

  “Could anything say more about the man than that?” Pithy asks. “A straight razor is a pimp’s weapon. Or a prostitute’s. Maybe a professional gambler’s, if you want to be charitable. But Brody didn’t know any better, you see? That was the world he’d grown up in.”

  Carefully opening the blade, I realize what a perfect weapon of last resort this razor would be. Far slimmer than a pocketknife, it could easily hide behind the seam of any garment.

  “Take that with you,” Pithy says, lifting a hand to silence my protest. “To remind you who you’re up against. Don’t expect fair play. Don’t expect chivalry.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  She grimaces in pain. “I need a Valium, Flo. My heart is racing.”

  Flora goes to the bedside table and takes a small white pill from its bottle, then holds it up to Pithy’s mouth with a cup of water. The old woman shakes her head, and the maid pulls back the mask and places the pill under her tongue.

  “Your daddy taught me this,” Pithy whispers. “Hits the bloodstream faster.”

  Flora and I stand silently beside the bed for a couple of minutes, and in that time Pithy’s eyelids slowly fall.

  “Is she asleep?”

  “I never know,” Flora whispers. “Sometimes I think she is, and then she’ll raise up when a car passes a mile out on the highway.” The maid steps closer to the bed and studies her employer’s face, then turns to me. “I think you can go now. I’m so glad you came. It did her a world of good.”

  “I’m going to send Melba out to give her a shot.”

  “Good. Her joints have given her the devil this week.”

  “How are your joints doing?”

  Flora’s smile broadens. “Did Doc tell you about me?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Sometimes, when my ol’ Arthur gets bad, Doc gives me a little shot, too. On the way out to his car, usually.”

  It suddenly strikes me that when my father dies, it’s people like this who will mourn him most deeply. In shotgun shacks and mansions alike, people like Flora and Pithy will sit and remember the doctor who came to their bedside, and listened, and did what he could to make their lives a little better.

  “You be careful, Mayor,” Flora says.

  My hand is on the doorknob when Pithy calls, “Wait!” in full voice. When I turn, the old woman is propped up on one elbow, her face tight with pain.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask, hurrying to her side.

  The old dowager shakes her head, her eyes wide in terror.

  Flora looks as shaken as I am by Pithy’s sudden fervor. “Settle down, now,” she says, but this does no
good. Pithy is staring beyond me as though at some spectral presence, but there’s only wallpaper there. “Remember what Aristotle said!” she cries. “Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers. And Horace!”

  Horace? “What did Horace say, Pithy?”

  “Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children, because they’re more certain they are their own.”

  This sends a shock through me. I feel a strange dread, perhaps even a presentiment of some approaching calamity. Suddenly the old woman grabs my hand, looks wildly into my eyes, and cries, “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised!”

  Flora takes hold of Pithy’s shoulders and gently forces her down onto the pillows. “You’d better go, Mayor.”

  “No!” Pithy insists, still wide-eyed. “Something’s burning!”

  Flora sniffs the air. “No, Miss Pithy. Ain’t nothing burnin’.”

  “Don’t lie to me! The fires of hell are God’s love, scalding torture to the sinner.” The old woman’s head bobs up and down for emphasis, and then she sags back into the covers.

  Flora turns to me, stricken with grief.

  “Does this happen often?” I whisper.

  The maid shakes her head and crosses herself. “You go on. We’ll be all right.”

  I lean over the bed and look down at Pithy’s half-closed eyes. “What do you see, Pithy?”

  The old woman squints like a sailor staring into a storm, then collapses as though drained of all energy.

  Flora takes my hand and pulls me away from the bed. “I’ll take care of her, Penn.”

  “I think Drew should examine her.”

  “She’ll be all right. This, too, shall pass.”

  Honoring Flora’s request, I back slowly out of the room. When I reach the door, the maid turns from the bed and looks at me. “Don’t pay her no mind. I think when you asked about her son, it upset her. That’s all it was. Miss Pithy’s strong, but she never got over her husband being killed like that, while she was with child. That’s why she never remarried.”

  “Thank you, Flora.”

  “Go take care of your daddy. The Lord has more work for him to do yet.”