by Chris Wiltz
The unmarked car hung back about half a block from the cemetery entrance. I followed the group, smaller than it had been at the funeral home, through the maze of tombs with crosses and angels on top of them. They were all very close together, and the sun dazzled them in a white heat.
Nita had separated herself from the group. I went and stood with her. Her eyes were hidden behind large, very dark sunglasses. When she spoke she didn't turn her head toward me.
“How well did you know her?” she asked, and the way she asked carried something of an accusation with it. It seemed to me she was asking me if I'd been sleeping with Jackie, but maybe that was just residual teenage guilt on my part, or the fact that every other man there seemed to have had some sort of intimate relationship with her at one time.
“Not very well anymore,” I said to Nita. “She and my sister were best friends when we were all in high school.”
“That was a long time ago,” Nita said bluntly.
“Are you reminding me that I'm an old man"—I admit I said this pointedly— “or are you wondering how I happen to be at her funeral?”
One thing about Nita, she was not slow. And in her grief I suppose she had no use for subtlety.
“I don't think of Maurice as an old man,” she said just as pointedly.
I half expected her to go on, to accuse me of not being much in favor of their relationship (I had no doubt that she'd picked up on my wariness the night we had dinner), but she stopped as if she'd lost heart. I found I didn't want her to think I was against them.
“I know you don't think of Maurice as old,” I told her. And I told her about Jackie calling me; I pointed out Bubba Brevna to her, gave her the lowdown on the Impastatos and the chicken drop contests; I explained how the Lizard was torched, that it was torched the same way as the restaurant. I wanted to let Nita know I wasn't thinking she was a child, that I respected her intelligence.
She turned her head toward me, pulled her sunglasses down a bit and looked at me over the rims.
“What are they all doing here?” she asked incredulously.
“Well, strangely, they're all her friends.”
“Geez,” she said, pushing her glasses back on, staring ahead again.
The priest began his litany at the gravesite, some of the mourners making responses. As the coffin was slid into its slot on the bottom tier of the tomb, Larry Silva broke down. Jackie's best friend Pam was at his side and, I now noticed, all dressed up in a tight black dress and high heels. Her arm was around his waist, holding him up, and he was letting her, one of his arms across her shoulders, weeping into her blond hair.
Everyone started to disperse, but slowly. Bubba was in conference with the Imps. I thought I'd follow him out and try to have a few words with him concerning why he was lying to the cops about me. But I didn't want to leave Nita too abruptly. She hadn't moved.
“So how are you coming along with your photographs?” I asked her.
“Fine.”
“Working hard?”
“I was.”
Bubba and the Imps started moving in the direction of the exit. Behind them was the woman with the beehive hairdo. Before they reached us, I stepped slightly aside and put a hand at Nita's waist. I barely touched her. She moved out into the pathway and we walked toward the cemetery gate well ahead of Bubba.
I went on with our conversation. “I guess this slowed you down.” She nodded.
We were walking over some tiny white shells now, our shoes crunching on them. I had a wave of déjà vu and then realized that the cemetery was oddly reminiscent of the trailer park where Bubba lived. White hot, little foliage, everything huddled together. I felt the need to talk, to make some noise other than that crunching sound. Just to have something to say, I told Nita I was sure she'd manage to get back to her work in a few days.
She said, “I pretty much have to, don't I. I have a deadline, remember?”
“I wasn't sure you'd decided to have the show.”
“Diana didn't tell you?”
“No, but we've both been pretty busy lately. We haven't been seeing each other every day.”
“I didn't mean for you to apologize,” Nita said. “I thought she'd tell you right away because I thought she'd be . . .” She trailed off, unable to find the right word.
“Smug?” I asked. She shrugged. “Look, Nita, Diana was an ass that night and I told her so. But it's a good opportunity for you, and I'm glad you're taking it.” I also wondered if she suspected I was glad the wedding was postponed. She walked on, not answering, looking at the ground; her hair, caught up high in the barrette, swung down over her cheek. She looked young and vulnerable.
We were at the gate. I moved off to the side just in front of the high wall surrounding the cemetery and stopped.
“Hey,” I said, “how about a game of pool one night soon?” I grinned at her. “I'd like to show you off over at Grady's.
Bubba and his entourage had caught up with us. Nita was shrugging at me again and starting to say something when the woman sporting the beehive touched her shoulder lightly. Nita looked around and the woman said, in a kind, rather maternal way, “Hi, honey, how're you doing?”
“Hi, Mave.”
Mave? Mave Scoggins who ran the Gemini owned by the Impastatos? How the hell did Nita know Mave Scoggins? Why did Nita know Mave Scoggins?
I didn't get a chance to ask. There was a blood-curdling scream on the other side of the cemetery wall from where we were standing. I looked around it, one arm reaching back, a protective barrier so Nita wouldn't follow.
Out on the sidewalk, Dietz was pushing Pam, who was screaming, and his deputy was pulling at Larry Silva. Pam was clinging to Larry's jacket. Now she was screaming, “No! Leave him alone! Stop it!”
Dietz put one of his thick sluglike arms between Pam and Larry and elbowed Pam out of the way. One of Pam's legs bent under her and she fell against the rough cemetery wall. As soon as he had Pam off Larry, Dietz flung him up against the side of the unmarked car and began cuffing him and reciting Miranda. At one point Larry tried to back away from the car and Dietz batted the back of his head with his palm. Larry's face smashed against the roofline of the car. I started running toward them, but the deputy stepped out, blocking my way. The two New Orleans cops had the small area around the car on the street side cordonned off with their motorcycles, arms folded, faces inscrutable behind aviator sunglasses. So that's why they were here, so Dietz could make his showy arrest. He was on their turf—they had to be here.
Larry was turning his head, trying to look in our direction. He was calling for me.
“Just go with them, Larry. I'm following,” I called back to him.
He got his head turned. There was blood running out of the side of his mouth.
At that moment I think I could have killed Dietz, I felt such rage. I stepped forward and so did the deputy. I put my shoulder up against his sternum and yelled, “Don't hurt him, Dietz.” It carried a threat—I couldn't help that. But I knew better than to outright threaten him in front of witnesses.
His putty-like lips smiled at me. “Don't rush,” he said. “He's got to be booked, stripped, and deloused.” He opened the back door of the car and, his hand on Larry's head, shoved Larry down on the back seat.
14
Reenie
By the time the funeral party came out of shock, Dietz was laying rubber down Basin Street.
Pam was standing next to the cemetery wall, crying. Her arm was scraped where she'd fallen against the brick overlaid with cracked concrete. The reason she'd fallen was because the heel had broken off her shoe when Dietz pushed her. She held it and cried. It was hard to tell if she was crying over the shoe or Larry or everything.
I looked around for Bubba, but he was gone. He must have been the only one who kept moving during Dietz's stop-the-show performance.
Meanwhile, Jackie's mother was coming unglued. Ma helped Mr. Guillot get her back to the limousine and asked him if he wanted her to ride back with
them, but Nita's mother came up and said she'd ride with them.
I drove across town to the Irish Channel, which is where my parents own the camelback double I grew up in. They live on one side, my sister and her family on the other. It's like that in New Orleans, especially in the Channel—whole families live in the same block for generations. It's also one of the reasons I got out. This town is claustrophobic enough being as flat as it is and shrouded with trees, without having to live under your family's nose. This, however, is another subject, as you've probably guessed, that I can go on about at length.
I suppressed my anger, waiting until I got Ma and Reenie home. The day had been upsetting enough without me raging all the way to the Channel. Anyway, I needed to cool down and ask myself why I was feeling so protective toward Larry Silva. I guess I just didn't buy that he'd killed Jackie. It was all too convenient, Larry's glass and cigarettes and his terrible timing. All that, though, was something a good defense attorney could use to some advantage. But that was another thing. Could Larry afford a good defense attorney? As far as I knew he was practically indigent. I let out an involuntary sigh of resignation. Neal Rafferty takes on yet another non-paying client. Not having any idea what I was sighing about, my mother reached over and patted me on the arm. I smiled at her.
She'd had enough sadness for one day. When I pulled up in front of the house, she practically leapt from the car.
“I've got to run, darlin’,” she said. “Your father's had that baby for almost two hours now.” She meant my sister's baby, Reenie's third, a boy. She leaned back into the car and lowered her voice as if the old man was listening at her back. “You know that two hours’ worth will send him over to Norby's for the rest of the afternoon.” Norby's is a neighborhood bar near Audubon Park where the old man, in his retirement now, likes to while away the afternoons so he can get out of the house and away from shrieking kids (my sister's other two), the wailing baby, and the women's chatter. The second there is any kind of crisis he's off like a shot.
Ma started to pull back, but she stopped and said to me, “I hope you can help that poor man, Neal.”
“I think I can,” I told her. “If he didn't kill his wife.”
“Oh"—she was surprised at what I'd said—"I'm sure he didn't do that.” She shook her head, negating the possibility. “I'm sure he couldn't have done that.”
Of course she was sure. Ma couldn't believe anyone would do that. I didn't want to believe Larry had done it either, but I also hated Dietz and wanted to prove him wrong.
“We'll see,” I said.
She shook her head once more and was off with her usual speed and zest. Inside the house there were babies to tend to, life to nurture. For a few seconds I was overcome by a peculiar feeling—I envied my mother.
Reenie, however, was not in such a hurry. She climbed out of the back seat and took Ma's place leaning into the car. She had dark circles under her eyes and in general didn't look well.
“I guess you're in a hurry,” she started.
The motor was idling; I cut it off.
“Not particularly.”
Hell, it was Friday. Dietz would stall around long enough to make sure that Larry spent the weekend in Orleans Parish Central Lockup, so that he couldn't be arraigned and bail couldn't be set until after he'd been transported to the JPCC—Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, in Gretna—on Monday. For someone like Dietz it was fun going out of his way to make another person's life miserable.
I said to Reenie, “Wanna talk?”
She got in the car. We both rolled down the windows. It was November, and we were still riding around in air-conditioned cars.
“I do,” she said, “but I'm not sure what I want to say.”
I turned toward her in the seat, getting comfortable, and lit a cigarette. “I think you want to talk about Jackie.”
She nodded, but she didn't speak right away. Finally, she turned in the seat, too, and got comfortable. We were all knees in the space between the bucket seats. Reenie folded her leg nearest me, tucked it partially under her, and smoothed her skirt printed with autumn flowers around her legs. She let the flowered crook of her knee rest against my kneecap. We settled in.
“Where do I start?” she asked, not looking for an answer. Her fingers drifted through her long hair, picking up one strand and twisting it ‘round and ‘round. “I loved her.”
“I know you did.”
“I mean, I really hero-worshiped her.” She let the strand of hair fall, combing it back into her reddish-brown waves which shone against the black blouse she was wearing. “A lot of girls didn't like her, but they were just jealous. I didn't expect to have as many boyfriends as she did. I was just glad to get to hang around with her and be seen with her.” She smiled. “I thought maybe some of her reputation would rub off on me.”
“You wanted to be known as fast?”
“No! You see, that's what you don't understand because you were two grades ahead of us and you didn't hang out with us after school. The boys didn't think she was fast. They thought she was indifferent, and she was. She was completely aloof, she didn't care about any of them and that made them more crazy about her. Of course, they wouldn't have been if she hadn't looked the way she did and walked the way she did. And everyone knew she was older and that didn't hurt either.”
Yeah, I thought, that walk of hers had gotten to them, too. But I didn't say anything. Reenie was starting to wade into some deep water here, and I hoped she'd back out. We'd never discussed her finding Jackie and me together. After a few months it just passed and we began acting toward each other the way we always had.
Reenie made a sudden move, sort of hitting my knee with hers, straightening herself angrily in the seat so we were no longer touching. “Jesus, Neal, how can you say that, about her being fast? You were screwing her, right? So doesn't that make you fast? Or are just girls fast? What is it—guys are exempt?”
“Here we go,” I said. “I didn't know what you meant. I didn't think you wanted to be known as fast. I may have been two grades ahead, but I heard guys talking. They talked like she was a pretty hot number.”
“So what did you think? That she was screwing all of them, too? How could she, she was always at our house. She stopped going out with anyone at all after a while. What's the matter, don't you remember?”
She was quite furious with me. Apparently she'd never stopped being furious.
“Come on, Reenie, of course I remember. But what's the deal? We're talking twenty years ago, twenty-two to be exact. Why are you so upset?”
“Because I never forgave her.” She started to cry. “All those years and all those times she called, trying again to be friends, and I never once called her. I wouldn't forgive her and now I can't forgive her.”
She was filling buckets. I prodded all of my pockets—no handkerchief. But I remembered Diana putting a small pack of Kleenex in the glove compartment one night. I got it out and handed it to Reenie.
She snatched it out of my hand. “I forgave you.” She hurled the words at me. Then she took out a Kleenex and sobbed into it, “But I wouldn't forgive her.”
“Oh boy,” I said to myself, but not out loud. I stared out the window a few moments, until she got herself more or less under control, then I said, “Look, Reenie, you had to forgive me eventually. I'm your brother. We lived under the same roof. You had to look at me every day.”
It sounded pretty good to me, but no reaction from Reenie.
“You felt betrayed,” I went on blindly. “You had to be angry at someone, and you just couldn't stay mad at me forever. Ma would have finally made us sit down and tell her what was up.” She still wasn't convinced. “Say what you want to about the unfairness of girls being called fast, but, face it, guys are expected to be raunchy. It's easier to forgive them.”
I didn't know if I'd just made new inroads into psychobabble or if Reenie would start screaming at me again. I waited.
After a while she looked at me, disgusted. “That'
s about as enlightened as Dad gets.” She knew that would hurt. “But you're right about one thing.” She'd stopped crying so much, just a few drips she was catching with the Kleenex. “I felt betrayed. I felt like Jackie had never cared a thing about me, that the only reason she was coming over all the time was because of you. And to get away from that miserable father of hers. Do you know what he used to do to her?” I didn't. “He had this little leather strap, and when he got mad at her, he'd make her pull her blouse down, you know, so it was around her elbows and he'd hit her with that strap on her upper arms. She said it was humiliating, standing there in her bra. She started wearing slips all the time. She said he punished her that way because he liked looking at her. Isn't that disgusting? Her own father?”
When Reenie told me that I thought of something I hadn't thought about since one night when I'd felt what must have been the welts from that strap on her arms. I remembered whispering, asking her what it was. She'd made some deep sound in her throat and hadn't answered, but moved my hand somewhere else to take my mind off her humiliation. It now made me feel terrible.
“I wish I would have forgiven her, I really do,” Reenie said, “but the next morning she cried and said if I stayed mad at her then she couldn't come over anymore and not only would she lose her best friend, but she wouldn't be able to see you. She said you wouldn't go out of your way to keep seeing her and she didn't know if she could stand it. Everything she said just made me feel more used and betrayed.”
It was true, I hadn't gone out of my way. I'd missed her, but part of me was also relieved. I'd never really thought about how she must have felt, if I'd hurt her.
Reenie's laugh cut into my delayed misgivings. “Do you know what she used to say about you, before I found out? She used to say she didn't know how I could stand living in the same house with you all the time, the way you hung around, always watching us, spying. She called you the voyeur." She gave it a dramatic French accent.