“She’s still married. That’s not your way,” I said.
“That didn’t stop me from getting it on with her.”
When others show levels of courage that seem beyond our own capabilities, we feel reduced in stature and are left wondering if a spiritual component is missing from our makeup. I once saw a black-and-white photograph of a Jewish mother walking with her daughter to a shower room in a Nazi death camp. The mother was holding the little girl’s hand. The weather was obviously cold; they were wearing cloth coats and scarves tied on their heads. They were flanked on either side by barbed wire and surrounded by other children filing into the same room, inside a concrete building somewhere in eastern Poland. No other adults, except the Nazi guards, were present in the photograph.
There was no cutline on the photo that would explain the incongruity of the mother among all the children. The viewer could come to only one conclusion: She had asked to die with her daughter. The white sock on the little girl’s left foot had slipped down on her ankle. I have never been able to forget that image, nor the courage that the mother had shown in refusing to abandon her child, even at the cost of her own life.
It’s my belief that the great heroes in our midst are the ones we never notice. I believed Felicity Louviere was one of them.
“Let’s pull out all the stops,” I said. “If we have to paint the trees, fuck it. At our age, what’s to lose?”
* * *
That afternoon Wyatt Dixon drove his pickup to the Younger compound and parked in front. The grounds were empty, and he could see no movement inside the house. His 1892 Winchester rested in the gun rack behind his head. He sat in the silence, trying to organize his thoughts, the taped bandage on his stomach as flat as cardboard under his shirt. He thought he could hear voices in the backyard and smell smoke from meat cooking on an open fire. He stepped out on the driveway and felt the earth shift under him, the stitches in his stomach drawing tight against the muscles like a zipper catching on skin.
He walked around the side of the house and through a border of wood-tubbed bougainvillea and citrus and bottlebrush and Hong Kong orchid trees. He saw Love Younger sitting in a canvas chair by a picnic table, the sunlight dappling his face. Younger was wearing alpine shorts and sandals and a print shirt open on his chest. A decanter of whiskey and a silver bowl full of crushed ice had been placed in the middle of the table, along with a tray of picked shrimp. Jack Boyd was sitting across from him, his long legs out in front of him, his ankles crossed. Both men looked at Wyatt with an alcoholic warmth in their faces, although neither man spoke.
“At the fairgrounds, you said something about my folks that I didn’t quite catch. Or maybe the words got knocked out of my head when Buster’s Boogie put me in the dirt. Can you refresh me?”
Younger looked genuinely puzzled. “Whatever we were talking about, it’s flown away.”
“You was saying something about white trash and the nigger in the woodpile. You was talking about making me a rich man.”
“I see. You’re here about money?”
“No, I’m here ’cause I don’t like the way you was talking about my folks.”
“I owe you an apology,” Younger said. “I thought you were someone else. What did you say your mother’s name was?”
“I didn’t.”
“Would you mind telling me now?”
“It was Irma Jean. Her maiden name was Holliday. Her people was from Georgia.”
“Like Doc Holliday, the tubercular dentist?” Younger said.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“That’s interesting. Your name is Wyatt. Maybe that’s more than coincidence.”
“You was calling us white trash?”
“No, I was saying you’re a man among men. I was saying we probably have many things in common.”
Wyatt gazed at the flower gardens and the fruit trees in the shade, and at the hand-waxed cars parked by the carriage house. “I can see our lifestyles are six of one and a half dozen of the other.”
Younger picked a sprig of mint out of a bowl and put it in his glass, then refilled it with whiskey and fresh ice. He did not invite Wyatt to join them. Wyatt watched Love Younger raise his glass and drink, his throat moving smoothly, as though he were drinking beer rather than whiskey. The stitched wound in Wyatt’s abdomen began to throb against the pressure of his belt buckle.
“Is there anything else?” Younger asked.
“Is there a reason your son has a hard-on for me, or is he just a nasty little termite by nature?”
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that kind of language while you’re on my property.”
“Where’s he at?”
“Taking a nap. He won’t be seeing you.”
“Directly, he will, one way or another.”
“Would you clarify that?” Younger said.
“He sent them men who attacked me and Miss Bertha. I don’t know why, but he done it.”
Younger put one sandaled foot up on the redwood bench. “Let’s talk another time. It’s such a fine day. Why cloud the sky when you don’t have to?”
“The name Irma Jean don’t mean nothing to you?”
“Afraid not.” Younger took a sip from his glass and set it down on the table. He scratched at the edge of his eye with his fingertip. “It’s rude to stare in another man’s face.”
“I can always tell when a man’s lying.”
“No man calls me a liar, Mr. Dixon.”
“It’s the other way around.”
“You’ll have to explain that.”
“The name Irma Jean didn’t ring no bells for you. If you’d known my mother, her memory would have been tattooed inside your pecker. Tell your son and Jack Shit here to forget they ever heard my name.”
Wyatt began walking back toward his truck, his day a little more intact. When he walked through the border of bougainvillea and ornamental trees, he heard either Boyd or Younger laugh behind him. He wasn’t sure at what. What he heard was not the laugh but its undisguised level of irreverence and ridicule. When he turned and looked through the branches of the trees, Younger was leaning toward Boyd like a man who had come down from the heights to share a private joke with one of his minions.
Because the two men were upwind from Wyatt, they obviously assumed he could not hear their words. Unfortunately for them, he didn’t have to.
I even told Jack Shit yonder I could read lips, he thought. Mr. Younger, if you’re so goddamn smart, how come you surround yourself with people who cain’t blow their noses for fear of losing a couple of brain cells?
He read each of Younger’s words like a bubble rising in the air, popping softly in the breeze. Then the words became a sentence, and the sentence continued into another sentence, and the sentences became a paragraph, and the paragraph became a knife blade that seemed to work its way through Wyatt’s abdomen into his scrotum.
I lived three months in a motel when we were drilling in East Texas, Younger said. Every third night, I fucked this cleaning girl named Josie something. An ass on her as big as a bed pillow. About a year later, I got a card from her saying I’d fathered her child. I tore it up and figured any number of men could have knocked her up, but from time to time it would bother me. I’d always carried my own water and paid my debts, including taking care of a woods colt or two. Finally, I had some private detectives look into it, and I thought Dixon might have been the product of my misplaced seed. But he’s not, thank God. He’s just run-of-the-mill rodeo trash and probably psychotic to boot.
What happened to the cleaning gal? Jack Boyd asked.
I’m not sure, really. One of the detectives said she and her husband may have been murdered. I wasn’t interested in the details. One of the detectives thought Dixon could have been Josie’s kid. Who knows? Nits all look alike. Anyway, Dixon’s mother was named Irma Jean. Case closed.
Too bad about the girl.
You’re right about that. She was the best piece of ass I ever had.
; * * *
At noon on Sunday, Clete told me he was going to the sheriff’s home, then to Love Younger’s compound. I didn’t argue. Felicity was in the hands of a bestial man, and Clete was powerless to do anything about it. I believe the strongest, most suffering people on earth are those whose family members are abducted by monsters, and who never see their loved ones again. If there is any worse fate that can be visited upon human beings, I don’t know what it could be.
I was up on the hillside when Clete returned at 3:17 P.M. and parked by the garage. His face looked thinner somehow, as though he hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. I walked down the hill to meet him. “How’d it go?” I said.
“Younger was half-sloshed and cooking out,” he replied. “There were three or four other guys drinking in the backyard with him. I asked him what kind of day he thought his daughter-in-law was having. You know what that arrogant cocksucker said? ‘She’s in the Lord’s hands.’ ”
“When did you eat last?”
“I don’t remember. What were you doing up on the hill?”
“Trying to figure out how Surrette came and went with such ease on Albert’s property.”
“If Felicity dies, I’m going to smoke Love Younger. I’m going to smoke his son, too.”
“What else did Younger say?”
“Nothing. He’s an ice cube. Here’s what’s crazy: On the way up to his house, I thought I passed Wyatt Dixon.”
“Why would Dixon be at Younger’s place?”
“Maybe he knows something we don’t. I went to the sheriff’s home and asked why Felicity’s abduction wasn’t on the news. He says he and the feds want to force Surrette to make contact with the media.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“I think it sucks. You know why Love Younger is so relaxed? Surrette is getting rid of a big problem for him. Felicity knows Caspian was behind Angel Deer Heart’s homicide. Surrette is going to wipe the slate clean. I need a drink.”
Before I could answer, I saw a compact car coming up the road. The female driver looked too large for the vehicle. She turned under the arch and came up the driveway, braking at the last moment, almost running over Clete’s foot. She got out of the car, looking around as though not sure where she was. The density of her perfume made me think of magnolia blossoms opening on a hot night in the confines of a courtyard.
“You’re the fat one who gave Wyatt trouble,” she said to Clete.
“How you doin’, Miss Bertha?” I said. “Can I help you?”
“You can. He can’t,” she replied, pointing to Clete.
“Is something going on with Wyatt?” I asked.
“Yes, and I’m very frightened about it. I need to talk with you, Mr. Robicheaux. Does this man have to be here?”
“Yes, he does,” I said.
“I’ll be at the cabin,” Clete said.
“No, stay here,” I said. “Miss Bertha, Clete is on our side. The good guys need to stick together. Did Wyatt go see Love Younger today?”
“How did you know?”
“Clete was out there, too.”
“Wyatt reads lips. Love Younger was telling an ugly story to an ex — county detective, a man who worked with my brother. It was about Wyatt’s mother. Mr. Younger was bragging on seducing a cleaning girl in a motel years ago. Earlier he had asked Wyatt for the name of his mother. Wyatt told her it was Irma Jean. Mr. Younger told the detective that wasn’t the same woman he seduced.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying, Miss Bertha,” I said.
“Mr. Younger said the cleaning girl’s name was Josie, so that meant she wasn’t Wyatt’s mother, and Wyatt couldn’t possibly be his son. What Mr. Younger didn’t know was that Wyatt’s mother was Josie Irma Jean Holliday. She used the name Josie at work, but to her family, she was always Irma Jean.”
“Love Younger is Wyatt’s father?” I said incredulously.
“His mother was working in the motel when Younger’s company was drilling not far from Wyatt’s home.”
“You’re saying Wyatt feels betrayed or rejected?”
“Have you seen his back? That’s what his stepfather did to him. He was punished every day of his life for his mother’s infidelity. Rejected? Where did you get such a stupid word?”
“Can I talk with him?” I asked.
“I don’t know where he’s gone. I thought he might be here.”
“Why here?” I said.
“He respects you.”
“What for?”
“He says you two are alike, that you see things that aren’t there. He also says you have blood on your hands that no one knows about. That isn’t true, is it?”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
Clete leaned against his Caddy and lit a cigarette with his Zippo, the smoke breaking apart in the wind, his green eyes dulled over, locked on mine. He removed a piece of tobacco from his tongue and flicked it off his fingertip. I could see his shoulder holster and snub-nosed .38 under his seersucker coat. How many times had he and I operated under a black flag?
“Wyatt left the house with his bowie knife,” she said. “He has that old rifle in his truck, too. I have to find him.”
“If you see him, tell him to keep his mouth shut about the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide,” Clete said.
“I don’t like your tone,” Bertha said.
“Few people do,” Clete replied.
She turned back to me. “You have to help him, Mr. Robicheaux. He’s tortured by what Love Younger has done to his life. He also has uninformed religious attitudes that were taught to him as a child. Wyatt has both too little and too much knowledge about certain things. And he’s confused by the name this killer may have been using.”
“You mean Asa Surrette?” I said.
“Who else would I be talking about? Wyatt did his own investigation into the disappearance of the waitress. He said the killer was using the name of a Roman emperor.”
“As an alias?” I said.
“He was calling himself Reverend Geta Noonen.”
I had heard the name Geta in a historical context, but I couldn’t place it offhand.
“He was the brother of Caracalla,” she said. “He was a cruel man, just like his brother. The two of them gave the Christians a terrible time.”
Clete was staring at me, the connections coming together in his eyes. “This has to be bullshit, Dave. Right? It’s bullshit, and she knows it. I’m not buying into this. These people need to pack their heads in dry ice and ship them somewhere.”
“Mr. Purcel, how would you like a punch in the face?” Bertha Phelps said. “You just take your big rear end down to the cabin and stay there, because you are starting to make me angry.”
“Do you know who Saint Felicity was, Miss Bertha?” I said.
“No,” she replied. “Who was she?”
“She died at the hands of the emperor Geta in a Carthaginian arena.”
“I’m not up to this,” Clete said. He got into his Caddy and backed down the driveway and onto the dirt road, then continued to back up until he was at the vehicle gate on the north pasture, as though eating the road and the entire world’s irrationality with the rear bumper of his car.
A moment later, an electric-blue SUV with smoked windows and dealer’s tags passed by the arch over Albert’s driveway, headed toward the end of the hollow, the sun’s reflection wobbling like a pool of yellow fire on the rear window.
“If something happens to my man, you two are to blame,” Bertha Phelps said. “I may have to take care of this situation myself. Then I’ll be back.”
* * *
Asa Surrette parked his newly purchased SUV in front of the house at the end of the hollow, then went inside, his overnight bag on his shoulder. The nostalgia he’d experienced at moving into a home reminiscent of rural Kansas had been replaced by a growing irritability that he couldn’t compartmentalize. Maybe it was the dusty baseboards and the bare lightbulbs and the dirt ingrained in the floors and thread-worn carpets;
they were not only realistic reminders of his natal home, they conjured up other images for him as well: treeless horizons, winds that blew at forty knots in twenty-below weather, Titan missiles sleeping in their silos under the wheat, the nightly mold-spore report on the local news.
His landlady didn’t help matters. She was Dutch or Swedish and had a loud voice and a North Dakota accent that hurt his ears. Her chirping evangelical rhetoric caused him to flutter his eyelids uncontrollably, not unlike a survivor of an artillery barrage.
He entered the house by way of the back steps, hoping to avoid her. Before he could make it to his bedroom, he heard a toilet flush and her feet pounding up the stairs. “Oh, there you are!” she said.
He stopped in the hallway. “Yes, here is where I am,” he replied.
She didn’t catch his annoyance. “Oh, my, what happened to your face?” she said, her fingers rising to her mouth.
“I walked into a nail.”
“My heavens. I hope you got a tetanus shot,” she said. Her hair was bleached and frizzed and resembled a wig. She wore bright coral-red lipstick and foundation that stiffened the fuzz on her cheeks and caused it to glow like whiskers against the light. “If you get lockjaw, you’ll have to take your food through a straw. Did you already get a shot? If you haven’t, you should.”
“I heard you. I’m fine.”
She looked past him into the driveway. “It looks like someone got himself a new SUV. You bought it in Polson?”
“What makes you think I got it there?”
“The dealer’s tag,” she said. “When I was a little girl, I’d memorize license numbers. That’s how I learned math. Did you say you got a shot?”
“I bought it from somebody who bought it in Polson.”
“Not to worry,” she said. “Geta, next time would you call?”
“Call about what?”
“You didn’t come home yesterday. We were worried.”
“I had to tie up a problem or two. That’s the nature of my work.”
“I see. Well, next time I’m sure you’ll remember to call. You look tired. Maybe you should take a nap.”
“I don’t need a nap.”
“Like Scripture says, we must always be alert. But as a minister, you already know that. You ran into a nail? How awful.”
Light of the World dr-20 Page 46