We held our positions for a while, soaking it in. Leonard got one of the newspapers and crunched it over his hand and made a makeshift glove out of it. He got down on his knees and reached inside and picked up one of the arm bones. When he lifted it, it pivoted at the elbow and some of it powdered and fell back in the box. The bones that made up the hand broke loose from the wrist and rattled back into the box, fragmenting pages from one of the old magazines; the fragments wisped and fluttered like a shotgunned bird.
Leonard held the arm bone and looked at it for a while, then carefully put it back. He used the newspaper to get one of the magazines out of there. He dropped it on the floor. Pages came apart and powdered the way part of the bone had powdered.
The magazines had been mostly photographs. A lot of the photographs were still visible. I didn’t like them. They were of children, male and female, in sexual positions with adults and each other. Leonard got out a couple other magazines and put them on the floor. More of the same. They were even some with children and animals.
I looked at them longer than I wanted to, to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing, then I squatted back on my haunches and took a deep breath. The breath was full of rotting paper and that other smell.
Leonard picked up the magazines and returned them to the trunk. He dropped the newspaper he was using as a glove inside and closed the lid of the trunk and put the padlock on it and locked it.
He stood up and wiped his hands on his pants and walked around in a small circle, then went to the desk chair and sat down and turned the little fan on his face. He was breathing as if he had just finished a hard workout.
“Uncle Chester,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, me on my haunches, Leonard in the chair, the fan blowing on his face. Finally, I said, “It may not be like it looks.”
“How can it not be like it looks? This is the key he left me. It goes to the trunk and it’s got what it’s got inside. That skeleton is a kid’s skeleton.”
“I know.”
“And those magazines. That filth . . . Jesus, was he getting even with me for being gay? Was he telling me he was a sicko, because he thought I was? Or did he get so far gone in the head he thought he had him a real treasure here? That I’d be one happy sonofabitch to have it. What did he do? Get this out now and then, look at the skeleton, the magazines? Jack off?”
“You’re jumping pretty far.”
“I’m jumping where there is to jump. The sick fuck had the gall to criticize me, and he was . . . Jesus, Hap. You think there are others?”
“I don’t know what to think. But you’ll need to tell the cops.”
“Yeah, they’re so fucking efficient. Jesus, Hap.”
I stood up slowly. “You could just put the trunk back in the hole, you know. He’s done what he’s done, and now he’s beyond punishment and can’t hurt anyone else. You could just go on with things.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“No. . . . Just a small, sad part of me means it.”
“This child needs to be identified. There might be others. Jesus. How long could this have been going on? There might be a whole slew of bodies under the house here. They could have been down there when I came for summers. He’s up here teaching me to tie a fishing fly, reading me a story, tucking me in bed, and underneath our feet, children are rotting.”
“He was sick in the head, Leonard. You know that. It could have just happened recently.”
“That only makes it a little better. Shit, it don’t make it any better. . . . Don’t tell Florida. Not yet.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Christ.”
“Tell you what, Leonard. Let’s put the trunk up for now. Nothing can be changed tonight. Absorb all this best you can. Tomorrow, after Florida leaves, we’ll do what you want to do. Of course, once the police know, it isn’t a secret any longer.”
“Yeah. Help me with the trunk, Hap.”
We put the trunk back. Leonard put a few boards over the hole and we stacked some of the newspapers over that. When we were finished, Leonard said, “Thanks, man.”
“Not at all.”
We washed up and I got that drink of water I’d been wanting. I went back to the bedroom.
Florida had kicked off the sheet again. She lay on her back. Her face was smooth and beautiful, and her lips fluttered slightly. Her breasts and pubic hair caught my attention, but somehow, having seen what I had just seen, I couldn’t hold any sexual interest.
I took off my clothes and eased back in bed and lay on my back and watched the fan go around and around. I listened to the wind in the bottle tree and hoped the souls of the drug dealers were being sucked inside. I wondered if Uncle Chester’s soul had gone in there, the soul of his victim . . . or victims.
I thought about the trunk and the magazines and I thought about Leonard. The world had certainly come down on him. I thought about the child’s skeleton and what the child had been like when he was alive. Had he been happy before it happened? Thinking of Christmas? Had he been sad? Had he suffered much? Had he known what was happening?
Across the way, in the crack house, I heard someone laugh, then someone said something loud and there was another laugh, then silence.
The shadows changed, broadened. A slice of peach-colored light came through the bars and fell across the bed and made Florida’s skin glow as if it had been dipped in honey. I watched her skin instead of the fan, watched it become bright with light. I rolled over and put my arm around her. Her skin was warm, but I felt cold. I got up and got the sheet and spread it over her and crawled under it and held her again. She rolled against my chest and I kissed her on the forehead.
“Is it morning yet?” she said.
“If you’re a rooster,” I said.
“Umm. I’m not a rooster.”
“I noticed.”
“Your breath stinks.”
“Not yours. It’s sweet as a rose. . . . Of course, it’s growing by the septic tank.”
“You know, you’re my first peckerwood.”
“And how was it?”
“Except for the itty-bitty dick part, great.”
“Nice.”
“I’ll show you nice. In a moment.”
She got out of bed and pulled the sheet off and wrapped it around herself. “I’m going to brush my teeth. Right back. Then you’re going to brush your teeth.”
“Are we going to check for cavities?”
“There’s one cavity I’d like you to look at,” she said, and left the room. I actually began to get the trunk and the body and the magazines off my mind. At least off the front burner.
When she came back, she said, “Leonard’s up. He always get up early?”
“Sometimes.”
“You think we woke him up last night? You know, we were kind of loud.”
“It’s OK. Why don’t you take off the sheet?”
“Teeth.”
I went and brushed then. I heard Leonard in the newspaper room. He seemed to be pacing. The old floorboards squeaked.
When I came back to the bedroom, Florida had taken off the sheet and was lying in bed with an unwrapped rubber on her abdomen, a folded pillow under her ass and her legs spread.
“Hint, hint,” she said.
11.
It was noon and hot and no breeze was blowing. Florida was long gone to visit her mother. The curb was bordered with cop cars and unmarked cop cars. Leonard had called the police about an hour back.
Next door, the crack house was up early, surprised it wasn’t them being paid a visit. They sat and stood on their porch and watched. Mohawk called to one of the plainclothes cops in the yard—a fat guy with a bad toupee—by name. The fat cop waved back.
An old black woman on a walker came out of the house across the street and stood on the porch and looked at us. It was the first time I’d seen her. She reminded me of an ancient, oversized cricket. Above her, on a high line, a crow cawed as if it need
ed a throat lozenge.
Leonard and I were on his front porch, sitting in the glider. Leonard looked to have shrunk during the night. His complexion had grayed.
A big black detective, fiftyish and hard looking, wearing a loose blue suit coat, was hunkered down by the glider asking us questions, while a white detective in a green Kmart suit like I had wanted to buy took notes and did battle with a fly that kept trying to light on his sweaty, balding head.
“Goddamn fly,” he said.
“They go straight for shit,” the black cop said.
“Yeah,” said the white cop. “Guess they’re gonna be all over you.”
The big black cop didn’t look at the white cop. You got the idea they did that kind of dull banter all the time, just to keep themselves awake. The black cop got a turd-colored cigar out of the inside of his coat and put it in his mouth and chewed it. He didn’t light it. He said, “That’s about it for now. The both of you will have to talk again. Maybe come down to the station.”
Inside, we could hear boards being ripped up. A couple of guys in jeans and T-shirts went by us, carrying shovels into the house.
“My name’s Lt. Marvin Hanson,” said the black cop. “I guess I should have already told you that. My manners are short. You two might want to hang somewhere else for a while. They’re gonna be digging and looking for a time. . . . You fellas want to go with me and have lunch? I’ll make the city pay.”
“Thanks,” Leonard said. “We’ll do that. OK, Hap? I wouldn’t mind getting out of here.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“What about me?” said the white cop.
“Blow it out your ass, Charlie,” Hanson said.
Charlie chuckled and slipped his notepad inside his coat. Hanson stood up and I heard his knees pop.
“Be a minute,” he said.
He went in the house and we stayed put. Charlie didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at us. He just leaned on the porch post and did battle with his fly.
Over at the crack house, a pizza delivery truck pulled up at the curb and a nervous black kid wearing a cockeyed paper cap got out and carried half a dozen large pizza boxes up to the porch.
Some jive talk and some dollars were passed around. The kid got off the porch without his paper hat. I noticed Mohawk was wearing it. It was too small and made him look like a black Zippy the Pinhead. Charlie looked over and saw him. He yelled, “Give it back, asshole.”
“Ah, man,” Mohawk said.
“Give it back.”
“That’s all right,” the pizza kid said, one foot in the truck, one foot out. “They got another one they can give me.”
“Naw,” Charlie said. “You look good in that one.”
“Whatch y’all got over there?” Mohawk said. “Dead people?”
“Butane leak. Give him the cap back.”
“Yeah, sure,” Mohawk said. “Come get it, kid.”
“Naw,” said Charlie. “You take it down to him. And be polite. Or we might have to look your place over. See if you got any illegal substances behind the commode.”
“You got to have some cause,” Mohawk said.
“A stolen paper pizza hat.”
“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.” Mohawk looked around at his porch buddies and smiled, and they all smiled with him. Parade Float came out of the house and let the screen door slam like he meant some kind of business.
“That’s right, ain’t it, kid?” Parade Float yelled to the kid. “My man just borrowed that hat, didn’t he?”
“That’s all right with me,” the kid said. “Damn. You know I don’t deliver this other pizza quick, I’m gonna have to pay for it. I better rush.”
The kid got in the truck and started to close the door.
“Naw. That’s all right kid,” said Charlie. “Keep your spot. I got money. And you, Melton. Let me give you some cause to give that hat back. You don’t, I’ll shove a pipe up your ass. One shoots bullets out the end of it.”
Mohawk—or rather, Melton—smiled. “Well, since you’re talking sexy, Sergeant. I’ll give it back.”
Mohawk went down the steps and toward the kid. He walked slow and cool, like he was styling his duds. He threw the hat at the kid and the kid grabbed at it and missed it, picked it off the ground, put it on his head, got in his truck, and cranked it up. He rolled away from there bent over the wheel.
Mohawk gave us a hard stare, like any minute he might move over and whip all of us. Leonard got up and stood at the end of the porch and looked at him, said, “Why don’t you come over for coffee, later. I’d like to visit . . . Melton.”
Mohawk smiled loosely and went back to the porch. Some talk floated around over there and the word motherfucker came up. Mohawk went inside and slammed the screen door. The little crowd on the porch shuffled positions like dogs looking for the right place to shit, and finally settled down.
“One day, that place over there might have a fire,” Leonard said.
“Yeah, I’d hate that,” said the white cop. “Me being friends with Melton like I am.”
“I could tell he liked you too,” I said.
“We can’t get enough of each other,” Charlie said. “We see each other time to time at the station. Melton Danner’s who he is, but he goes by Strip to them guys. I went to high school with him. I was a couple years up on him. He was OK then, I guess.”
I said, “What I can’t figure is why you can’t just take those fucks off the street for good.”
“We’re figurin’ on that one ourselves,” Charlie said. “We’ve asked Uncle Sam about it, but he don’t have any answers, and I guess we’re not smart enough to come up with any on our own. Shitasses like that, they got rights, you know? And they got expensive lawyers ’cause they got lots of dope money. Kind of makes us feel inefficient, running them in at night so they can get out in the morning after a hot meal and a shower.”
Hanson came out of the house. He took his chewed cigar out of his mouth and flicked it gently and put it back inside his jacket. He walked to the edge of the porch and spat out a little hunk of tobacco. He looked at Charlie and he looked at us. “What?” he said.
“We were just talking to Melton,” Charlie said.
“Sweet boy, that Melton,” Hanson said. “And already got his door fixed from last time we knocked it off the hinges.”
“He’s a beaver, all right,” Charlie said.
Leonard said, “Find anything else?”
“Not yet,” Hanson said. “Come on. Let’s go. Don’t fuck things up, Charlie.”
“Hokeydoke,” Charlie said, and we followed Hanson out to his car.
12.
A burger joint was Hanson’s idea of fine dining. I got coffee, a cheeseburger, and fries. The coffee tasted as if a large animal had crapped in it, but the burger and fries had just the right amount of grease; you wrung out their paper wrappers, there was enough oil to satisfy a squeaky hinge.
Hanson said to Leonard, “You doing OK?”
“Not really,” Leonard said, “but another hundred years, things will get better. You didn’t just invite us to eat so you could cheer me up, did you? You got something on your mind?”
Hanson experimented with his coffee. His was good too—I could tell the way his upper lip quivered. He put the cup down and got out his cigar and put it in his mouth, talked around it. “I knew your uncle. He’d been down to the station.”
“For shooting my neighbors in the ass,” Leonard said.
“And he reported them a half-dozen times. We take them in, they get out, they start over. It’s like fighting back the Philistines with the jawbone of a hamster.”
“A game,” Leonard said.
“Yep,” Hanson said. “And there’s a nasty, persistent rumor that some of the cops take bribes.”
“Naw,” Leonard said. “Say it ain’t so.”
“All I got to say on the matter is I’m not one of them, and you damn well better believe it. As for your uncle, he fancied himself something of a policeman.
You know about that?”
“I know he was a security guard. That he wanted to work in law enforcement. Wanted to be a detective. I remember he read a lot of true-crime magazines and books, read mysteries. Anything associated with crime. I know he tried to get a job on the police force, but by the time he tried he was too old, and before that, they weren’t gonna have no black man on the LaBorde cops.”
“Trust me,” Hanson said, “it ain’t no bed of roses now. We still got the legacy of Chief Calhoun.”
“As I remember,” I said, “in the late sixties the first Chief Calhoun gave his cops six feet of looped barbed wire with a wooden handle and told them to use it on some civil rights folks, a peaceful assembly downtown. He had his cops hit the protestors with the wire. Women and children. The town council was so broken up about it, they issued all the cops new batons and brought some martial arts guy in to show them how to use them. The batons left more legitimate marks.”
“That Calhoun was before my time,” Hanson said. “But his heritage lives on. Fact is, except for the rhetoric, chief we’ve got now, his son, makes the original Calhoun look like a liberal. I’m the only black on the police force, and it’s not because they want me. Calhoun sees me, his stomach hurts and his dick shrinks up. A nigger with a gun makes him nervous, makes him dream of white sheets and burning crosses. Worse, I’m a former city nigger, a concrete and neon jigaboo. Add insult to injury, I been here nearly ten years and I’m still an outsider, and last but not least, I’m a good cop.”
“And modest,” I said.
“That’s my most pronounced trait,” Hanson said.
“You didn’t invite us to lunch for this either,” Leonard said, “to tell us you knew my uncle and the department thinks you’re a nigger. You damn sure didn’t bring us here to tell us what a good cop you are.”
“I’m not sure I brought you here for any reason makes sense. I wanted to ask some more questions, kind’a.”
“The sphinx would make more sense than you do,” Leonard said. “You haven’t asked a question one.”
Hanson sipped the bad coffee without removing his cigar, said, “I don’t have any reason to doubt your uncle committed this murder.”
Mucho Mojo Page 6