After performing his morning ablutions, which became simultaneous ablutions of mourning, Merlin sensed that he needed to get out of the house as soon as possible. He didn’t even call for an Alles car or finish tying his bootlaces. He just marched toward the street. He had to leave behind the scene of the crime, at least for a while.
Looking downward as he emerged onto the sidewalk in front of the house, he noticed a new crack was forming. “Probably buckling from the heat,” he mumbled aloud to no one. “Merlin!” someone called from up the street. He looked up and saw Lindley approaching on a retro Schwinn bicycle with a wire basket attached to its handlebars. Two bunches of just-picked roses lay crosswise inside the basket. The bottoms of each bunch were swaddled in damp kitchen towels.
The instant she saw Merlin’s face, she knew something was wrong. He didn’t say her name and smile like he usually did when they met. He just gave her a sad, silent look, like he was asking for something. As she coasted to a stop next to him on the street and put out her right foot to balance on the curb, she asked, “What’s wrong?” Merlin’s brow furrowed, and as he tried to get words out, he pointed at the plastic-covered broken window.
“You were burglarized?” Lindley asked.
Merlin looked back at her and nodded. Then he managed to produce speech, but only haltingly. “They smashed it,” he said.
“What? The window?” Lindley queried.
“Yes, but, also the armonica,” Merlin replied.
“The instrument you play to make that beautiful music?”
“Yes.”
“They damaged it?”
“Smashed.”
“They broke it?”
“Destroyed. Smashed into pieces.”
“Oh, Merlin! I loved listening when the sound carried to my back garden!”
Merlin received and mirrored her gaze in mute despair.
“And especially when I passed by your place while you were playing.”
“You did?” Merlin asked with a bit of the surprised golden retriever look. He noticed a glimmer in her green eyes, and it sparked a flicker of hope in his own.
“Who would do such a thing?” Lindley continued.
“Someone who doesn’t like my playing, I guess.”
“I can’t imagine. I think your playing is inspired.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
Lindley looked at her watch. “Oh, I’m late.”
“You are?”
“Yes, Chloris Godley, a friend of my parents, is recovering from surgery, and I’m taking her some roses.”
“Oh,” Merlin said.
“But here.”
Lindley chose two of the fullest blooms in the bunches and offered the long-stem roses to Merlin. “But,” she began, and before she could say “be careful,” Merlin had reached for and taken the thorny stems. He closed his meaty mitt around them and immediately winced and said, “Ow!” Blood was oozing from a thorn prick to the palm of his right hand. He carefully shifted the stems to his left hand as he looked at the fresh puncture.
“Oh, shoot!” Lindley exclaimed. “I was going to tell you to be careful! Wait! I have something.”
Lindley took a pair of gardening shears from the courier bag at her side and cut a strip from a bandanna tied to the bicycle basket. She used the remaining large piece of bandanna cloth to wipe Merlin’s palm. She wet her fingers with saliva and wiped away the blood. Then she very swiftly and deftly tied the cloth strip around his hand, covering the wound. Merlin watched the whole operation with amazement that turned into gratitude.
She looked him in the eye and said, “Put pressure on your palm with your other hand.”
“Okay,” Merlin offered with the empty, guileless eyes of the bereft.
As Lindley got back on her bike, she said, “I’m so sorry, Merlin.”
He said, “Thank you, Lindley. And thank you for the roses.”
Something he couldn’t articulate moderated his despair as he noticed how the sunlight fell on the nape of her neck and her right shoulder.
Lindley smiled and rode away. Merlin stood with his left thumb pressing down on his right palm and kept a delicate hold on the roses between his left fingers and the back of his right hand. He looked down the street and saw Lindley rounding a curve and pedaling out of sight. He then looked back at the vibrant deep crimson of the two roses, forgetting for a moment the sting in his palm.
• Twenty-nine
Merlin looked up again to the place where Lindley had disappeared around the bend of the street and saw a dark-colored vehicle rounding it in the opposite direction and moving toward him. Before he could make out what kind of car it was, he heard the low rumble of its engine and then its horn sounding several short blasts. Could the honking be for him? He stood wondering with his signature quizzical look, then recognized the vehicle was a black El Camino. The only person Merlin knew with an El Camino was his friend, erstwhile defender, and recent coconspirator in the breaking of a new Bayou Boughs Country Club rule—Shep Pasteur.
The El Camino slowed, and the driver’s side window lowered. Shep called to him. “Hey, Merlin!” Shep pulled over to the curb, and Merlin crossed the street to talk with him. Merlin’s expression telegraphed a clear signal to the long-suffering Cajun.
“What the problem is, cher?”
“They smashed it.”
“Smashed what?”
“My armonica.”
“A harmonica?”
“No, the instrument I play. The glass armonica.”
“Oh, you mean dat fancy spinning glass contraption that make such pretty music?”
“Yes. They are rare and difficult to procure. Benjamin Franklin invented it.”
“I know. I remember you telling me about it and then playing me a recording of you playing it. So, it’s broken?”
“It’s utterly demolished, Shep. Someone broke into the observatory last night before I got home and destroyed it.”
“Oh, man, that’s terrible! I’m so sorry, cher. Who would do such a thing?”
“Someone who hates me, I guess. All I saw on my security camera was a guy completely covered in a ninja suit and gloves.”
“A ninja suit?”
“I guess that’s what it was.”
“It was even worse because it came right after I got some bad news.”
“And what was that?”
“I got a formal letter from the board suspending my membership.”
“That ain’t right. You never hurt no one or called nobody names or nothin’. Magic Man always mind his own business and polite to everyone. I’m sorry, and I’m sorry times two, cher, but if it’s any consolation to you, that makes two of us.”
“Two? It does?”
“You and me. That’s why I’m riding this way on your street this time of day. They told me not to show up for ten days and not to count on any pay for that time either. Now how long they get you for?”
“Six months.”
“Six months! That’s not a suspension! That’s a sentence! Hell, suspendin’ Merlin McNaughton ’cause he eat a big hearty breakfast oughta be a crime. The suspenders are the ones who oughta be suspended!”
Merlin hung his head. Whenever Shep saw Merlin in this state, he usually tried to think fast to buoy him up, at least a little.
“An’ the blimp done flown to Iowa?”
“Ohio.”
“Whatever. I mix ’em up. They sound like the same kinda cold place to me. Either way, it’s a long way from Houston.”
“Yes,” Merlin said.
“An’ the company still han’t found you any other work?”
“Not so far.”
“Then I got a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yes, sir, a plan.”
“What’s the plan, Shep?”
“The plan is Lumbeaux Jump.”
“Your hometown?”
“Callin’ it a town is a little bit of a stretch, but yeah. It’s gonna be our base of ope
rations.”
“Operations?”
“With hook and line.”
“Fishing from Lumbeaux Jump?!” Merlin’s droopy face brightened.
“Dat’s right, cher. Seeing as you and me got no work to go to an’ the moon’s new an’ I jus’ got a report from ma sweet cousine that the fish are active, I don’t see a whole lotta other options for us.”
“Oh! Okay! What do I need to do?”
“All you gotta do is bring whatever tackle you want and any rods. I got everything down there anyway—extra rods and reels, lures, shad heads and tauts, topwaters, swivels, leaders, tout ça.”
“Oh, okay, I have some stuff. Should I bring snacks?”
“Hey, Magic Man, we goin’ to the land of snacks. On top of that, you know the Black Ghost flies down the highway. Before you can say loup-garou, we’ll be crossed that Sabine River and pickin’ us up a big sack full o’ boudin links that’ll do us all the way to da Jump.”
“Ooooh!” Merlin became bemused imagining a bag full of authentic, spicy boudin links. He asked, “Can we have sauce with them, too?”
“Hell, yeah,” Shep countered, “hot sauce, pickles, onions, whatever.”
“Oh, wow, Shep. Wow. Thank you.”
“Hey, what friends do? Dey look out for each one another, hey what?”
“I always wanted to go over and fish in that part of Louisiana.”
“Well, even though the sky looks a little dark here, you got a silver lining shining just to the east. Now I can’t guarantee anything. We all know that’s why it’s called fishing and not catching, but we gone give it the best shot we got.”
“When should I be ready?”
“How ’bout day afta tomorrow?”
“Okay!”
“An’ I spec we stay for five or four days so we can hit a few different spots.”
“Okay.”
“Ma sweet cousine say they got some big trout bitin’, and the bull reds ain’t shy neither.”
“Ooooohhhh!” Merlin responded with a faraway look toward the sky.
“Now all you gotta do is get yourself together an’ we go.”
“Okay. I’ll get ready.”
“An’ I see you half pass eight in the morning here day afta tomorrow.”
Shep gave a little half-salute of a wave from his left brow and put the same hand on top of the steering wheel as he eased away down the street. He raised the window and adjusted his reflective wraparound fisherman’s sunglasses. Turning the corner at the end of the street, he stepped on the gas and let the 454-horsepower engine roar within earshot of Tite Dûche’s faux Tudor manse.
• Thirty
In his office at Dûche Ovens, Tite Dûche wadded a one-piece black bodysuit into a ball and tossed it into a trash can in a corner of the room. His mobile phone buzzed. He touched the answer button and said, “Yes.” As he walked to his desk, he said, “I’ll check that right now.” And then, “They’ll make a delivery tomorrow night. Russian-flagged vessel.”
Tite listened for a moment and said, “Yes. I’ll call after the drop.” He thumbed the red end call button without saying goodbye.
• Thirty-one
Shep had filled a big ice chest in the truck bed on the driver’s side of the El Camino in an attempt to offset his passenger’s weight, but this tactic was to little avail as Merlin caused the vehicle, even with all of its state-of-the-art springs and shock absorbers, to list toward the right lanes of the interstate. Shep couldn’t put a larger ice chest in the rear of the vehicle because its bed, at seventy-five by forty-eight inches, was just big enough to place a few seven-and-a-half-foot fishing rods on the diagonal across it with less than an inch to spare. (The diagonal of the El Camino bed was almost ninety-one inches and the rods and attached reels spanned ninety inches.) The use of space was actually pretty elegant, and it sectioned the El Camino’s truck bed into discrete compartments for various fishing-related supplies and gear.
From the rear, the look of the vehicle on the highway was a bit cartoonish—a souped-up but not flashy vintage El Camino with the dual exhausts and covered bed looking muscular while leaning to the passenger side like an unevenly loaded barge. Everything else was the soul of bayou cool. There were no garish flame decals or brightly colored effects on the vehicle. The only appliqué was at the center of the rear window, a fleur-de-lis composed of redfish and trout. It said Cajun fisherman, and that’s who Shep was.
They motored eastward past petrochemical plants and refineries, crossed the Trinity and the Old & Lost Rivers, then moved into a blank lowland prairie as they approached Beaumont. A truck slowed in front of him, and Shep signaled with his left blinker. He gripped the classic eight-ball knob atop the Hurst shifter, jammed the Nixon-era muscle car down a gear, and mashed on the gas. The big 454 roared, sending Merlin backward in his seat like an astronaut in one of the 20-G centrifuge training machines down at NASA. The El Camino rocketed into the left lane, leaving the eighteen-wheeler and slower traffic behind them in a cloud of exhaust.
During the powerful acceleration Merlin flattened to his bucket seat and overhung it like one of those droopy pocket watches in Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory. When the Black Ghost leveled off at a considerably higher speed in the left lane of the interstate and Merlin reassumed his usual shape, he said, “Wow, Shep, this vehicle has considerable power.”
“You can say that again, Magic Man.”
“How much horsepower?” Merlin queried.
“She got a LS6 turbo jet 454 under the hood.”
“And was that flap that popped open on the hood for the carburetor?”
“You got that right, too. Dat little flap is what you call a cowl induction hood. It forces the air right into the Holley 4150 four barrel. Got a vacuum secondary that kicks in the second two of the four barrels when I ask the ghost to fly. Got a Erson 120320 flat tappet camshaft with a dual valve spring, a Mallory dual point distributor wit’ a Accel super coil and yellow solid-core ignition wires, a Muncie M21 transmission. What else you wanna know?”
“What about the differential?”
“Ain’t no sissy factory ten-bolt. Da Black Ghost got a big, fat twelve-bolt differential. Big ring and pinion inside make it some kinda strong.”
“What’s the ratio on the differential?”
Shep turned to Merlin with a quick, slightly miffed glance and just as quickly resumed his even-tempered concentration on the fast lane.
“Twenty year ago I had a 4.11 cause I liked it to pop off the line, but I changed it out to a 3.55 cause I wanted the Ghost to move real smooth-like on this here Hi-10.”
“And how much does the Black Ghost weigh?”
“Well, when it’s just me and a full tank and no cargo in the back, she run about 4100 pound.”
“How big is the gas tank?”
“Twenty gallon.”
“And the horsepower is 454?”
“You got it.”
Merlin stared forward intently through his thick round eyeglass lenses. “So, it would probably do a quarter mile in between 11.80 and 11.95 seconds.”
Shep whipped his head around to Merlin and looked at him in shock.
“Not just probably, but exactly! Last time I checked, she clock in a quarter at exactly 11.87 seconds. How’d you do that?!”
“I just made the calculations and compensated for the weight of the fuel and an average driver.”
Shep put his attention on the fast lane again, and his shocked countenance now hosted a wry, satisfied smile.
“Dat’s why they call you the Magic Man.”
Merlin just sat expressionless, looking forward down the interstate.
“I think all dat calculation work calls for a little music. We on vacation anyway, cher. You like Clifton Chenier?”
“Zydeco?”
“Yeah, you right!”
“Sure!”
Shep cued up “Hot Rod” by the legendary Zydeco king and turned up the volume as the punchy, driving, freight train beat
hustled them toward the Louisiana border.
• Thirty-two
Mickey McNaughton sat at the bar at Mossel & Gin in the converted Westergasfabriek complex in Amsterdam. He was enjoying his second artisanal gin and tonic and looking around the web on his laptop. He checked his e-mail and scrolled backward to an unopened message from Merlin. He shrugged and decided to click on it. He was Merlin’s trustee, after all, and even though Merlin’s messages were often tedious, it was only right that he at least read them. Besides, the egging affair captured his attention, especially now that he knew Titey Dûche was the culprit.
Mickey opened the e-mail and read.
Dear Mickey:
I don’t mean to bother you, and I thank you for taking time to read this.
The observatory was broken into through a window. The intruder destroyed my armonica, but it does not appear that he committed robbery. Also, just before I ascended to my abode and refuge, I opened a letter the purport of which was suspending me from the club for six months.
I implore you for your confidentiality in what I am about to tell you, as it involves some actions on my part that might be considered well beyond the pale of the good citizenship our forebears instilled in us.
Mickey read about the tracking device and Merlin’s flights to the property in Northeast Houston. When he read the details of the last night flight, his mood changed from slightly annoyed to intrigued. He responded to Merlin with a terse, but civil reply.
Merlin: so sorry to hear about the break-in and the suspension.
So, just want to confirm with you that you have my complete confidentiality regarding the details of the flights.
Best and wishing you well, right?
Mickey
He looked at his watch. It was still morning in Houston. After paying the tab, he walked to his apartment a few blocks away and placed a call to his friend Jim Atlas in the office of the Harris County District Attorney.
Merlin of the Magnolias Page 17