Hellbound

by Chester Campbell

  The itinerary called for a visit to three of the twenty-four antebellum houses on the Natchez Fall Pilgrimage Tour. Bryce had looked through the brochure at the magnificent array of colonnaded homes dating from 1798 to 1858. Being a non-Southerner, he was particularly fascinated by these colorful relics of the plantation era, a period of American history that had come to a tragic end after colliding head-on with a juggernaut known as the Civil War. But that was all in the past. Right now he had a war of his own to contend with, one that might break into the open at any moment.

  “Sounds like an interesting tour,” he said.

  Fred swiped crumbs from his mouth with a napkin. “Should be. From what I hear, we won’t likely be the only busload around.”

  Good, Bryce thought. The more the merrier. He should have no trouble getting lost in the crowd.

  There was a low whistle behind them, followed by a testy voice. “I’ve seen better legs than that on a coffee table. You guys haven’t devoured all the goodies, have you?”

  Bryce turned to find Sarah Anne wearing a flippantly quizzical gaze, followed closely by a smiling Marge dressed in gray slacks and a pink-striped polo shirt covered by a lightweight yellow jacket. He was struck by the fact that the plainest attire seemed to take on a certain verve when she wore it.

  “I think they just brought in some hot muffins,” Bryce said.

  “Morning, sis.” Betty Lou gave a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Hi, Marge.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “We’re finished. You all can have these seats.”

  Marge attempted to give the chairs to Troy and Bryce, since they were there first, but they would have none of it. Chivalry lived. When the women were seated with their pastry and coffee, Troy asked Sarah Anne about the status of her teaching job. After being a high school Spanish teacher, she had worked as an instructor at Northwestern University for the past few years.

  “I’m still trying to get the kids to habla Español,” she said with a shrug.

  “I thought maybe you had retired.”

  “No. I still have a year or two left in me. I’m not as old as my sister, you know.”

  As they talked on, Bryce set his empty plate and cup on the table beside Marge, who was listening to the conversation across the way, where Clara verbally entertained the pair next to her. A couple with heavily lined faces, apparently in their eighties, they sat with the polite inattention of a captive audience.

  The woman finally appeared to get her fill and broke in. “We’d better be getting back to our room. Nice to meet you, Clara. We certainly enjoyed the Continental Breakfast with you.”

  As they got to their feet, Clara looked up with large, sincere eyes. “You know what Continental Breakfast means, don’t you?” she asked. “It means it’s free.”

  With an incredulous frown, Marge glanced around at Bryce, who stood beside her.

  He whispered in her ear. “You can’t say this trip isn’t educational. You learn something new every day.”

  With her audience filing out, Clara turned her attention across the table. “Sure glad to have you back with us, Marge.”

  “Actually, I’ve been back at Lovely Lane for several months now,” Marge said.

  “I know you have. But this is the first Silver Shadows trip you’ve been on. Horace and I never miss one. Do we, Horace?” She turned to him.

  Solemnly, he replied on cue. “We never miss one, Clara.”

  “Did that church you came from have a group like this?” Clara asked.

  Marge had a slightly pained expression. “No, not like this.”

  “You know, I heard one of the ladies, she’s a Baptist, I think, say that her church quit having trips after a couple got in a fight at a motel. The woman got a black eye and some bruises. He was one of those abusers, you know. She said–”

  “We’d better get back and finish packing,” Bryce said, cutting her off. He held out his arm, making a show of staring at his watch. “Don’t want Tillie Ellis to get on our case this morning.”

  “That’s for sure,” Marge said. She jumped up and tugged at Sarah Anne’s arm.

  As they started past, Clara gave Bryce a perceptive look, as if she had just discovered gravity. “You must have been in the war, Mr. Reynolds,” she said.

  The comment stopped him as effectively as a brick wall. He stared down at her, frowning, with a puzzled expression. “Why do you say that?”

  “That scar on your leg. My brother has one exactly like it, only his is a little higher up. He got hit with some shrapnel during an artillery barrage in Europe.”

  Bryce was so caught by surprise that his reply was barely audible. “So did I.”

  As they started walking away from the building, Sarah Anne glanced back at him. “Clara doesn’t miss a thing, does she?”

  “You’re right about that,” he murmured, still shaken by the observation.

  He had begun to reflect on his answer and wonder if he might have made a serious gaffe. Hopefully not. But if he had thought about the scar earlier, he would have made some excuse to skip wearing the shorts. The mob obviously knew about the war wound, since the Alcamo company doctor had given him a physical.

  “Bryce and I still need to pack our toothbrushes,” Troy said. “You girls going back to the room?”

  “I guess I could use a trip to the bathroom,” Sarah Anne said. “We’ve already put our bags on the bus.”

  A few members of the group were out doing their morning walks, circling the motel. “I should be doing that,” Bryce said. “I missed yesterday.”

  Troy looked thoughtful. “If I was home, I’d be getting my exercise lifting Virginia and tugging her around.”

  “How’s she doing?” Marge asked. “I haven’t been by to visit with her for a while.”

  “She’d be happy to see you. She’s holding her own, I guess. Gradually getting a little bit more unsteady.”

  As they followed the driveway from the office around to the main building, they passed a separate structure on the left that appeared to house meeting rooms. The building was long and low-slung, with a parking area in front. When Bryce glanced over that way, what he saw had the same effect as someone raising a large red flag. It took a force of will to shift his eyes away, to keep from staring.

  A late model, dark blue Cadillac sat in the parking area, facing outward, with two men in the front seat, one in the rear.

  They were too far away for any positive identification, but Bryce was ready to quote some of his dad’s sure-thing odds that the occupants were the same trio he had seen last night at the restaurant. He was more convinced than ever now. This was the Grim Reaper’s advance team.

  16

  That scar on his leg suddenly felt as if etched in a glowing neon red. With a swift but smooth, and what he hoped appeared natural, move, he stepped around Troy and Sarah Anne, edging slightly ahead so they would be between him and the Caddy. He still had no idea if the deadly trio knew his identity, and he could only speculate as to whether they were aware of Pat Pagano’s scar, but he would err on the side of caution. As soon as they reached their room, Bryce slipped the key into the lock, twisted it and pushed his way inside.

  He turned to Troy. “You can go first.”

  As the bathroom door closed, he pushed the heavy drapery aside enough to peek through the window. He could see no one but a few Lovely Laners outside.

  His bag lay open on the bed. Hastily, he pulled off the shorts and slipped on a pair of jeans. He was packing the shorts away when Troy stepped out of the bathroom.

  “Hey. Why’d you do that?” Troy frowned at him.

  Bryce grasped at the first thought that came to mind. “I found a tear in a seam. I was afraid it might rip open on the bus.”

  “Dang. Now I’ll be the only one in shorts.”

  “Sorry,” Bryce said. “You’ll have to be the lady-thriller all by yourself.”

  When their bags were zipped, he followed Troy out to the sidewalk. “Want to see if the girls are ready?”
>
  “Sure.” Troy knocked on the door, and it opened immediately. “We’re heading for the bus,” he said. “Y’all ready?”

  “Let’s go, Sarah Anne,” Marge called over her shoulder. Then she stepped out onto the walkway.

  Bryce caught a peculiar expression on Marge’s face as she glanced across at him, then turned away. Was the look one of wariness? Fleetingly, he wondered if his changing into blue jeans might have prompted her reaction? But he didn’t have time to dwell on the possibilities. His thoughts turned to more pressing matters as they walked up the driveway toward the bus, which was parked in full view of the blue Cadillac.

  Bryce stepped into the crowd around the cargo bays, which stood open like gaping mouths ready to devour the luggage. He shoved his bag inside. Then he followed Troy to the door of the bus, where a smiling Chick Townes helped the women up the steps.

  “Morning, Tillie,” Troy said. She stood beside the driver’s seat, checking her notes.

  She looked up with a quizzical glance. “Still have your room key?”

  “We left it beside the TV,” Bryce said. “Sure is a beautiful morning.”

  Tillie smiled. “Just what I ordered.”

  Troy turned and gestured upward with his thumb. “She has a special line to the man up there.”

  I could use one of those myself, Bryce thought as he looked out the windshield to where the blue car sat waiting.

  As soon as everyone was aboard, Tillie gave their marching orders. “We’ll be visiting three houses this morning. The first one is called Gloucester. It was built around 1803 and was once the home of Winthrop Sargent, the first governor of the Mississippi Territory. After that, we’ll see Magnolia Hall, then the Banker’s House. The tour will wind up around noon at the Carriage House Restaurant, adjacent to Stanton Hall. We’ll eat lunch there, then head on to New Orleans.”

  Chick put the bus in gear, backed out of his parking spot and began to maneuver the long vehicle out toward the street. Seated on the opposite side from where the Cadillac was parked, Bryce could only wonder at what action its driver might have taken. He knew he would find out soon enough.

  After a short drive from the motel, they came to the large red brick mansion called Gloucester. As the bus rolled into the parking area out front, the classic two-story, white-columned portico presented a striking picture in the morning sun. Wrought iron railings painted white flanked the front steps and porch and an identical balcony above. Just beyond the portico, the walls began to angle back to form the house’s unique octagon shape. Those with cameras began taking aim the moment they stepped off the bus. A nattily-dressed man, one of the owners, awaited them at the top of the steps, accompanied by an attractive, hoop-skirted guide.

  When he reached the porch, Bryce glanced back toward the parking area and spotted the blue Caddy, parked a discreet distance behind the bus. The three occupants had climbed out and begun to stroll toward the house.

  Bryce joined the line of Silver Shadows trooping through the front door as Tillie checked them off. Inside, they were herded into the sitting room, where the blonde-haired young woman in the swirling blue silk skirt began to tell about the house and its period furnishings.

  “This home is one of the finest and best preserved of the old Southern mansions,” she said. “It was built in 1803 and was once part of a five-thousand-acre plantation.”

  She went on to describe nineteenth century silver objects from France, delicate tables and lamps from New Orleans, paintings from Europe and furniture handsomely carved by craftsmen from the early 1800s.

  As the group moved around the room, Bryce found himself standing beside Marge and Sarah Anne. When the mellow-toned docent described one of the chairs, he leaned toward Marge and whispered. “Doesn’t strike me as too comfortable. Looks like something a stiff-backed old maid aunt would sit in.”

  Her reply was quick and mirthless. “Or a stiff-backed old navy captain.”

  “Not my style, at any rate,” Bryce said. “I’d prefer something you could lean back in and prop up your feet.”

  “That sounds like Keith Walden,” she said with a nostalgic nod. “He was never much on formality.”

  Bryce grinned. “My kind of guy.”

  A few minutes later, the guide led them out into the hallway toward the dining room, located at the opposite end of the front section. She stopped along the way to comment on a variety of paintings and other art objects. While they listened, Bryce glanced back toward the sitting room and saw the wavy black hair and thick, squarish brows of the well-dressed young hood he had seen last night at the restaurant.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, the name popped full-blown into his mind: Dominick Locasio.

  He was certain now. This was the young sidekick he had observed with Boots Minelli in New York. They had never met, but Frank Salerno had given him the name, along with the comment that “Dom” would likely turn out exactly like his mentor. Bryce translated that to mean “deadly.”

  The fact that he could recall a name from several years back when he sometimes had trouble remembering people he had met the week before puzzled him. Then he realized his mind had been working like a computer, the way a microprocessor manipulates information on a particular subject in the background while an entirely different set of data is being accessed on the screen. Undoubtedly his brain had been subconsciously at work, digging around in old memory banks ever since the discovery he had made last night at Shoney’s.

  Positive identification of the Mafia hood was a sobering accomplishment, and the prospect of what the man was doing here made Bryce even more ill at ease. Standing in a who-gives-a-damn slouch, Locasio spoke with broad hand-waving gestures to a small wisp of a woman with unruly white hair that she kept pushing to one side. She wore a Silver Shadows name badge.

  He felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to eavesdrop on the conversation. Was Locasio inquiring about someone named Bryce Reynolds, or was he just digging in a blind hole?

  Bryce turned to Marge. “Who is the little lady over there talking to the black-haired guy in the suit?”

  She followed his gaze. “Oh, that’s Pauline Sanders. You don’t often see her talking like that, especially to strangers. She’s more comfortable with children.”

  “She have a large family?”

  “None at all. She never married. But she’s been involved in the Children’s Department at Sunday School ever since I can remember.”

  How could he approach Pauline Sanders and find out what he needed to know without being unacceptably frank, Bryce wondered? “I presume she’s retired. Where did she work?”

  Marge shook her head. “She never worked. She had a sister a couple of years older, who worked as executive assistant to the head of one of the insurance companies. She passed away a few years ago. Pauline kept house and looked after their father until he died. She’s a funny little thing. You may have noticed how she stands around the edge of a group of people. She doesn’t talk much but she sure hears a lot. I think Tillie cultivates her to gather all the gossip.”

  An eavesdropper? As they followed the guide on into the dining room, Bryce tried to recall if Pauline might have been standing near him sometime, listening. He was certain he had seen her. What had she heard that she could tell Locasio?

  Damn. He couldn’t recall.

  The guide droned on about place settings of old French silver and Sevres and Wedgwood porcelain and pre-Civil War artifacts, then the tour moved to the rear and across to the small brick outbuilding that housed the old kitchen. Bryce maneuvered to keep an eye on Locasio and his henchmen without attracting attention to himself. Other tourists joined the milling group and he shifted about to mask his presence by literally staying in the center of things.

  A large gaggle of people had gathered outside the patched brick facade of the “winter kitchen,” listening intently to a large black woman in a blue-checked dress with a short white apron. She and busied herself answering questions about how the slave women had prepared meals in
the old days. But Bryce was more concerned about the scene a few yards away where Locasio had cornered Clara. She knew too much, and she was capable of telling the man much more than even he wanted to know. Bryce noted with some consolation, however, that she didn’t appear to be pointing toward anyone, particularly himself.

  Shortly, Tillie began herding everyone toward the bus. On the way, Bryce made a point of catching up with Clara and Horace Holly.

  “You folks enjoy that?” he asked.

  Horace waddled along like a lame duck. “Interesting,” he said

  Clara shook her head. “They must have plenty of servants. Wouldn’t you hate to have to clean that house? Specially after a bunch of strangers trooping dirt in all day long.”

  He saw just the opening he needed and jumped at it. “Speaking of strangers, who was that sharp-looking young guy in the fancy suit I saw you talking to?”

  She frowned, deepening the wrinkles in her forehead. “You know, that was really strange. That young fella came all the way down here from New Jersey. He just called it ‘Jersey.’ I said ‘that’s a cow.’ Anyway, he saw the Tennessee plates on our bus and wanted to know where we was from. I told him Madison, of course, and you know what he said? He said his father had a good friend lived in Madison, that he thought he went to Lovely Lane Methodist Church. Isn’t that just too much?”

  That was indeed too much for Bryce. If he had needed any further confirmation that the stranger was Locasio, that inventive little story supplied it. And those characters were no more from New Jersey than he was.

  “Did he tell you the friend’s name?” Bryce asked, trying not to sound too concerned.

  “No, he couldn’t remember the name. Said the man had only lived in Madison a few years. Wanted to know if that might fit any of the men on the bus.” She paused a moment, lips pursed. “The only ones I could think of right off hand were you and Will Chandler and that MacArthur fellow.”

  That stung. Not just for the problems it might bring him but for what it might mean to the others. At the moment he had no idea how to deflect it.