Southern Cross

by Stephen Greenleaf

  The pitch had been crisp and professional, with maybe a speck of eroticism thrown in to sweeten the deal, just a hint that if my plunge made a big enough splash, Chantrelle’s gratitude might extend beyond knocking a half-point off her commission. I doubted the offer was genuine.

  I matched her practiced smile. “I’m afraid I’m not interested in real property, Ms. Hartman.”

  She frowned. “But Orchid said—”

  “Orchid was the victim of a con.”

  She crossed her arms and leaned against the desk. The movement made her thighs spread and her skirt rise, but she was so mad at me it didn’t matter. “Do I know you?” she asked abruptly.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Your name rings a bell, somehow.”

  “I know your father.”

  “How?”

  “College. We were roommates. As well as friends.”

  She examined me until I grew warmer than the room. “The yearbook—the picture of Daddy half-naked tossing something off a roof. You’re the guy with him.”

  I nodded. “Water balloons. Your dad made a great bombardier.”

  She shook her head dejectedly, as though I were a teacher bringing news of a wayward child, then went behind her desk and sat in her leather throne. “What can I do for you, Mr. Tanner?” she asked wearily. “Does Daddy know you’re in town?”

  I nodded. “We got together at the class reunion. He persuaded me to come home with him.”

  “Are you staying at the house?”

  I shook my head. “The Confederate Home.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “That old thing? Why?”

  “I’m a big fan of Jubal Early.”

  She buttoned a button on her blouse. “So what brings you in here? Checking how well the gene pool made it into the next generation?”

  “That’s part of it,” I acknowledged. “Plus I hoped we could talk a bit about your father.”

  “Daddy? What would you like me to say about him?”

  “Well, to start with, how do you think he’s getting along?”

  She yawned to establish unconcern. “Professionally? He’s making tons. Personally? He’s finally keeping company with the woman he’s been in love with for more than twenty years.”

  “How about psychologically?”

  She met my look. “I have no idea. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I probably will.”

  She paused and looked perplexed. “I don’t get it. You sound like you think something’s wrong.”

  “I’m just concerned about him.”

  “Why?”

  “He seems uneasy. Maybe even frightened.”

  “Of what?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Chantrelle looked at me quizzically, then went to the window and looked at the water that was lapping at the shore in the next block. “Did he send you here?” she asked without looking back. “Is this some kind of trick? A plea for sympathy? An effort to get Daddy and me to reconcile?”

  “None of the above,” I said.

  “Don’t tell me he found out about me and … but he couldn’t have.”

  “Couldn’t have what?”

  “Nothing. But why should I believe you when you say you’re not up to something?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  “Because you’re a friend of his.”

  “How does that make me a liar?”

  It took a while before she answered. When she did, the words were quick with pain. “Daddy lied to me about everything—his feelings for Mama, his feelings for me, his messing around with other women: everything. If you’re his friend, you’re probably lying, too.”

  “Why would I bother?”

  “Men lie to women all the time. They seem to enjoy it.”

  “Not me,” I said. “You can ask anyone. I’m as honest as an Indian. That was a joke,” I said, when Chantrelle didn’t respond with anything less hostile than a grunt.

  When she finally turned and looked at me, her eyes were a match to the sea—green and cloudy and turbulent. “I haven’t seen much of Daddy lately.”

  “Since the divorce.”

  She nodded.

  “You obviously hold it against him.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? He destroyed our family.”

  “In my experience, the wrecking ball tends to swing both ways.”

  “Shit.” Formerly competent and commanding, Chantrelle had come to resemble a waif. To confirm the transformation, she raised a hand to squash a tear. “Only one side couldn’t keep his prick in his pants, Mr. Tanner. I can’t forgive him for that.”

  The pain in her voice and the tears in her eyes made me want to be of comfort, but I doubted my attentions would be welcome. I stayed where I was and watched as she dabbed her eyes and rubbed her nose, then dug a compact from her purse to help repair the damage.

  “He was everything to me,” she said through hasty ministrations, “but he betrayed that devotion. He told me it was going to be all right, that the problems with Callie could be worked out, that there wasn’t another woman. And all the time he was screwing that … bitch.”

  “Jane Jean?”

  She nodded. “Have you met her?”

  “No.”

  “Be prepared to swoon.”

  “Why?”

  “She has that effect on men. Why, I don’t know, other than the size of her breasts—I hope to hell they’re implants and they’re leaking like a sieve.” Just shy of the boiling point, her anger began to cool.

  “Are you involved with someone, Chantrelle?”

  She regarded the question as a come-on. “That would be a little incestuous, don’t you think?” Her lips bunched like old knuckles.

  I smiled. “I wasn’t asking for a date, I was wondering whether you had a boyfriend.”

  “Why would you care?”

  “Because I was wondering if he might be such a Southern gentleman it would occur to him that he’d be doing you a favor by making trouble for your father, given the way you feel about him.”

  She folded her arms and stared at me. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Her smile was thin and smug. “Only that Daddy wouldn’t approve of my boyfriend, either.”

  “Why? Who is he?”

  “None of your business.”

  There didn’t seem to be anywhere to go with that, so I took another tack. “How has your mother stood up to all this?”

  She turned away from me once more, back to the comfort of the harbor. “How do you think? Daddy brought her down to this Gothic dollhouse of a place, then humiliated her in front of the entire town, then left her so broke she had to take up with a … thug just to put food on the table.”

  “You sound less than enamored of your stepfather.”

  “Aldo? He’s a mobster. Or used to be. He’d break your legs in a minute if he thought you were a threat to his reputation or had designs on my mother. Do yourself a favor and stay away from Kiawah.”

  “How about your brother? What’s he up to these days?”

  “Colin?” She shrugged helplessly. “Colin thinks God wants him to get tattooed and wear army clothes and blame black people because no one will give him a record contract.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  Chantrelle shook her head, then looked at her watch and walked to the door and opened it. “I have to go eat johnnycakes and sign closing papers.”

  I’d gotten all I’d hoped for from her, so I did her bidding without protest. When I was at her side, Chantrelle put a hand on my arm. “I really could make you some money, you know.”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “Why? Don’t you think I’m competent?”

  “On the contrary. It’s just that lately the only people who seem to be making money are the ones who already have a bunch.”

  On my way out of the office, I heard her tell Orchid to try to reach her mother and explain that
she wouldn’t be able to make it to the Omni bar; she had to go out to Snee Farm and show a condo to a chiropractor.

  FIFTEEN

  Seth’s office was nearby, on State Street in the block above Broad, on the ground floor of a tilting brick building that traced its origins to the eighteenth century according to the brass plate tacked to the corner. The reception room was a crowded mix of antique furnishings and abstract art, and the woman who presided over it was the most compelling object in the place—I was beginning to think the ladies of Charleston had all been recruited out of Vogue.

  As I pushed my way through the door and crossed the polished pine floor and the luxuriant Persian carpet, she smiled from behind her desk as though I were bringing her a dozen roses. “Good mornin’,” she chimed cheerily. “How may we hep you all today?”

  “My name is Tanner. I’m a friend of Mr. Hartman’s. Is he in?”

  “Mr. Tanner! Splendid! Seth was hopin’ you’d drop by about now.”

  “Why?” I hadn’t provoked that much excitement since the last time my Buick stalled at an intersection.

  “He wants you to join him for lunch. At Saracen.”

  When I didn’t react, she elaborated. “It’s a restaurant? One of the best in town from what they say, but don’t worry about that—Seth always picks up the check. He’s real good about that kind of thing.” She pointed with a digit that was impossibly long and impressively beringed. “Go out the door and turn right, then right again when you come to a little alleyway? Then right at the next block. You can’t miss it.”

  “Is Seth there now?”

  “Should be. He left about ten minutes ago.”

  “Then I’d better get moving.”

  “Have fun,” she directed musically, doubling the syllables in the final word, then rested her chin on her fist and watched me take my leave. The smile at my exit was exactly as bright as the one provoked by my entrance, which meant it wasn’t a smile at all.

  After I followed directions, I found myself in front of a large stone structure that looked to be out of The Arabian Nights by way of Indiana Jones. A sign on the door said it had been built in the nineteenth century, in the style of Moorish picturesque by way of the English Regency. Its swirls and circles and arches and columns created an atmosphere fit for a caliph; I was disappointed when the hostess wasn’t veiled like Salome.

  She greeted me with the chummy gush that seemed to come with the territory in Charleston. When I gave her my name and the name of the party I was joining, her joy was exactly as boundless as Seth’s receptionist’s had been.

  She ushered me to a table in a corner that was hidden by a leafy ficus growing out of a big clay pot. Beneath the spindly branches, Seth and the woman with him looked to be entwined in intimate palaver. The woman had her back to me, but when Seth saw me coming, he touched her hand and whispered, then got to his feet and beckoned for me to join them.

  “I see you got the message. Great. Marsh, I’d like you to meet Jane Jean Hendersen. Jane Jean, this is Marsh Tanner. I believe I may have mentioned him once or twice or a hundred times.”

  As the surprisingly artless introduction wound to a close, the woman turned my way, adjusted the drape of her bodice, brushed a curl away from her eye, and gave me one of those Charleston smiles. But this one was real, real enough to melt my heart and make it trickle through my groin and tickle toward my toes.

  “We meet at last, Mr. Tanner,” she said through the middle of her grin, and lifted a hand from her lap and offered it as my appetizer. Its wrapping was warm and moist, unscarred by time or labor; its fingernails were lacquered with what my Crayola box called Burnt Sienna. I was tempted to play Lothario and bend at the waist to kiss it, but I made do with a grasp and a shake. The bracelets on her wrist made light of my timidity.

  The face above the hand I held for longer than was necessary was full and large-featured, its color a monochromatic wash of white with a hint of blush at the crest of its cheekbones that matched the auburn tresses that dusted her bare shoulders. The lips were more than munificent and waxed to match the nails; the eyes were outlined and ornamented from a palette of blue-black. The expression she chose to wear was both eager and intrigued, and maybe a little cautious. If I had seen a more beautiful woman in my long life, her name didn’t spring to mind.

  “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Hendersen,” I said, my voice sounding false and uncouth in the circumstance.

  “The pleasure is mine, I assure you. Seth sings your praises lavishly.”

  “As I remember, Seth generally sings off-key.”

  Her laugh was brief and throaty. “Quite the contrary—in this case it’s a veritable hymn.” She gestured toward a chair. “Please join us, won’t you?”

  A writ wouldn’t have kept me away.

  I don’t know if it was Jane Jean’s outsized loveliness, or her equally voluptuous charm, or my own endemic state of need that generated the effect, but I was already full fathom five into the swoon that both Chantrelle Hartman and Scar Raveneau had warned me of. All I knew was that if Ms. Hendersen had asked me to remove my clothes and dance on the tabletop, I’d have been up there doing a naked buck-and-wing before she could lick her lips.

  Seth remained standing until I took my seat, then took the chair across from me. “Been enjoying your morning of sight-seeing, Marsh?” he asked when I had reluctantly abandoned my gape.

  At least I was still sensible enough to take the hint. “Definitely,” I said, adopting my own version of the regional rapture. “This is an amazing city.”

  “We refer to it as America’s best-kept secret,” Jane Jean said warmly. “And we like that just fine. If more people knew how special Charleston was, we wouldn’t have it to ourselves anymore.”

  She had a point, and I told her so.

  “Have you been up to Market Street yet, Mr. Tanner?” she went on pleasantly. “The baskets the women weave from the local sweetgrasses make the nicest gifts imaginable. I know every single one of your lady friends would enjoy such a token of your affection.” Her smile teased me till I blushed. “It’s a historic craft, brought over with the slaves from Africa. They’ve put several on display in the Smithsonian Institution.” Jane Jean sounded truly proud.

  “I haven’t made it up there yet,” I said. “But I certainly plan to.”

  “And don’t forget the art museum. And the Customs House. And—”

  “Now, Jane Jean,” Seth interrupted as he touched her hand with clear affection. “Marsh isn’t writing a travelogue, after all.” He looked my way and grinned. “Not that I know of, at least.”

  “Speaking of writing, we have several famous authors here in Charleston,” Jane Jean segued eagerly. “Josephine Humphreys is divine, of course. And Alexandra Ripley, the woman who wrote the sequel to Gone with the Wind, is a Charlestonian, too. And there’s a young man over at the college by the name of Lott who—”

  “Jane Jean gets a commission from the chamber of commerce,” Seth interrupted with fondness.

  “The book reps, too, it sounds like.”

  Jane Jean made a face. “We’re very proud of our people and our heritage, Mr. Tanner. I’m sure you understand.”

  Since I come from a place where civic pride has reached jingoistic if not xenophobic proportions, I assured her that I did. When we exchanged small smiles of confederacy, I got the better deal.

  “Let’s order, shall we?” Jane Jean said suddenly.

  “What do you recommend?” I asked, as if I were competent to judge anything more evolved than a tuna sandwich.

  “The shrimp are always lovely, of course,” she said, “but then everything here is divine. I particularly enjoy the pine-nut soup, and the lamb with apricot chutney is excellent. And you must try the chocolate soufflé for dessert. Promise me you will,” she added, so I did.

  We ordered the food and drink and made small talk all through the meal without a single throb of controversy. Based on my recollection of the right side of the menu, the t
ab would run more than a hundred bucks. Neither of my companions seemed to care, which is what family money and an expense account will do for you.

  “I understand you’re a lawyer, Ms. Hendersen,” I said as we were finishing up.

  “Guilty as charged,” she admitted. “And I insist that you call me Jane Jean.”

  “What’s your specialty?”

  Seth laughed. “Guess.”

  Which gave me an excuse to inspect his fiancée frankly instead of surreptitiously. I suppose she was wearing a thousand dollars’ worth of makeup and had silicon stuffed under half the surfaces of her body, but God she was lovely—Elizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride lovely.

  I inhaled to quell my lust. “Taxation,” I said, just to be saying something.

  “Criminal,” Seth corrected.

  I blinked and looked again. “You’re a criminal lawyer?”

  She cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Why do you find that so amusing, Mr. Tanner?”

  “I don’t. I just find it … incongruous.”

  “Jane Jean’s a chip off the old block,” Seth said by way of explanation. “Her father’s a legend hereabouts; handled some of the most notorious criminal trials in the state. I first met him when I came down during college to work for SNCC. R. Montgomery Hendersen is one of the main reasons I decided to practice law; back in the sixties, he was one of the few white lawyers down here who helped during the voter drive.”

  I looked at Jane Jean again. “I’ll bet you’ve never lost a case.”

  “What makes you think such a thing?” The twinkle had returned to her eye—I could have toasted a marshmallow on it.

  “I can’t imagine a juror who would want to disappoint you,” was the fatuity I came up with. Seth and Jane Jean shared a wink and a laugh; under the cover of a blush, I resolved to keep my mouth shut. When a shadow fell across the table, I was relieved at the interruption.

  The man blotting out the light from the chandelier was verging on titanic, with a florid face and bulbous nose and turbid eyes and a suit that last fit him ten years ago. His expression demanded deference, and his hands slid down Jane Jean’s bare back in a way that made me jealous.