The funeral procession wound slowly down the street to the cemetery. The grass was fresh-mown and wet from a recent rain, glittering when sun broke through. A large gray awning marked the gravesite. Cars began parking, somber faces moving toward the earth’s open wound as if drawn by horizontal gravity.
Nike and Marie were first from the car, followed by Ryder and Father Tim. Nike was ashen and trembling, but had insisted on coming. The quartet marched slowly across the grass, Marie sniffling into a tissue, murmuring, “The world is gone crazy.”
Rank upon rank of white plastic chairs sat beneath the awning, its scalloped edges wafting in the breeze. To the side were the news cameras, the videographers behind them almost vestigial, as if the cameras had recorded death so often they could now do it on their own. The four mourners positioned themselves to the side of the cameras,
preferring to stand, as others were doing. Ryder moved closer to Nike and put his arm around her waist, feeling her tremble.
The casket rested beside the grave, dark wood with handles of gleaming brass. The minister, an elderly black man whose church was two blocks from Sandhill’s restaurant, stepped forward and cleared his throat. The crowd fell silent and all that could be heard were birds singing from the branches.
“Dearly beloved,” the minister began in a voice like rusted iron. “We know not why the world moves as it does. That is not ours to know. We know not why those taken from us before their time are taken. It is not for us to know…”
Ryder watched a tear slide down Nike’s cheek. He closed his eyes.
“What we can know,” the minister continued, “is the King of All Kings is God, and it is to His Kingdom where the soul of LaShelle Shearing now rests, or plays, or watches as we gather in solemn remembrance of her brief life…”
When the service concluded, Nike remained silent and walked ahead with Marie, Ryder and Father Tim a dozen paces behind. Ryder discerned several plainclothes colleagues scanning the crowd from its edges, hoping against hope that the perpetrator had come to gloat.
“How’s Conner?” Tim asked. “I tried to see him this morning after I’d heard, but the cops wouldn’t let me in his room.”
“He got lucky. A ballistics tech said the heavy thermal glass he installed in the apartment, combined with the oblique angle of the shot, probably deflected the slug just enough. It helicoptered across his ribs instead of punching through his heart.”
“Will he be…”
Ryder nodded. “He’ll be moving slow for a while, Padre, but the machinery’s fine. Or will be. He’s a little fuzzy right now, but aware enough to tell us what had gone down.”
“Do you have any idea who’d do such a thing?”
“The shooter phoned the apartment, watched the window until he saw Sandhill, then took the shot. No peel-out getaway, so no tire tracks on the street; no shell left behind, no cigarette butts or trash dropped out the car window…”
“You say Conner got a call. Can it be traced?”
“It was from a cellphone. We should know something later this morning.”
When he entered the hospital room, Ryder knew Sandhill was better by the way the exiting nurse rolled her eyes, as if to say,
You want him, you got him.
Sandhill had the bed cranked to sitting position and was muttering about the soul of a hospital that didn’t have gumbo on the menu. His left arm was in a sling, his side a patch of gauze and tape. He was wearing his crown.
Sandhill picked up a plastic bedside urinal and shook it. “Need to take a leak, Ryder? They make it real easy here.”
“No thanks. Glad to see you’re feeling regal again.”
Sandhill tapped the crown. “Marie brought it by to cheer me up. When she started up with jokes about barbecued ribs I sent her packing.”
“How’s the side?”
“When the pills wear off it feels like I’m being attacked by woodpeckers.”
Ryder pulled a chair close to the bedside and sat. “You got luckier than hell, Sandhill.”
“Never underestimate the power of energy conservation; I’m real glad I decided to insulate.”
“You remember anything new?”
“I recall the ride home from the property room, trying to get some sleep. Then I’m on the floor with the phone under me, dialing 911, feeling like everything I got is pouring out of my side. Next thing I know, I’m here and someone’s shining a spotlight into my eyes.”
“It was a penlight. And you tried to strangle the intern using it.”
Sandhill leaned toward Ryder, keeping his voice low. “I’ve touched a wire somewhere. You don’t get potshot because someone doesn’t like your hush puppies.”
Ryder scooted forward until his knees thumped the bed. “You’ve been crashing through the underbrush for two days, Sandhill. Who stands out?”
“Could have been someone at the mission. Or someone in one of the bars; everyone knew I was out for information and maybe someone
got scared and wanted to take an insurance shot. Hell, for all I know, it was that jerk-off biker from the mission, though I doubt it. How about another run at photo-boy, Desmond? See if he—”
“I can’t do squat. Squill put me on suspension, remember?”
“That shithead. Only Squill would pull one of his best dicks from a case out of pique.” Sandhill shot Ryder a look. “You sure it was an accident? There were times I got so pissed off at do-goodie bystanders I wanted to—”
Ryder waved the conjecture away. “I don’t even remembering touching him. But once the cruisers whipped around the corner, everything started happening at rocket speed.”
“Any witnesses to your action with the old guy?”
Ryder looked grim. “A TV camera for starters. I think that’s what boiled Squill’s butt; not that the guy fell, but that it got caught on tape.”
Sandhill studied the blank screen of the television at the far end of his room.
“I’d love to see this event. I’ll bet you could hook a player to that TV.”
Ryder was back in an hour, walking in with a DVD player under his arm, wires trailing the floor. “I had to yank my player off my set,” he said. “That was the easy part.”
“The hard part being…?”
“Making a copy of the newscast. Squill came
strutting past the conference-room door a couple times. If he’d walked in and found me…”
“You’d be in blue again. What if Squill finds you here?”
Ryder shrugged. “Life goes on.”
“Keep that positive attitude. Squill’s gonna walk through the door in about ten seconds.”
“What?”
“Listen down the hall…those footsteps? Who else you know walks like a storm trooper on crank?”
Ryder quickly set the player on the credenza and tried to shove the disk behind it, but there was no room. He stepped in front of the machine.
“Well if this ain’t a gathering of the faithful,” Squill said as he strode in the door, Duckworth following at the distance of a pull toy. “What the hell are you doing here, Ryder?”
“I was…visiting my uncle. In the cardiac unit. I stopped in to see if…Sandhill needed anything.”
Squill’s thin lip warped into a sneer. “You better learn to pick better friends, Ryder.” He turned the glare on Sandhill. “Have you been messing in the cases? Enough to piss somebody off? If you’re with-holding—”
Sandhill rolled his eyes. “Dammit, Terrence, I’m not the problem here. The problem is that person or persons unknown is out there plucking young girls from the streets, and they’re damned skillful at it. Let me come in and work with the department, give me some leeway—”
“You’re not setting a foot inside again.”
“That your final offer?”
“We’re not dickering here, Sandhill. You’re a thief. It was a measure of my charity that you were allowed to resign. I could have had you locked tight.”
“Charity?” Sandhill spoke the word as if puzzled by its meaning. “Don’t you mean you were just avoiding negative publicity?”
Squill looked at Duckworth. “Let’s go, Commander.” He turned to leave, but his eye caught the player behind Ryder. He narrowed an eye at the machine and the boxed disk atop it.
“What’s that, Ryder?”
“It’s a DVD machine, Terrence,” Sandhill interjected. “It plays movies so I don’t have to watch soap operas and people gargling with maggots.” Sandhill looked at Ryder. “Like I was saying before we got interrupted, Detective, if you get to a video store, I’d like
Henry V
, the Branagh version,
Hamlet
, the Burton version, and
Die Hard,
the Olivier version.”
Squill reached past Ryder and picked up the disk in its plastic case. “What’s this?”
Sandhill yawned and laced his fingers behind his head. “A copy of
Deep Throat
, the Disney version. Seems there was an eighth dwarf named Lengthy…”
Squill pitched the disk back on to the credenza. “Listen hard, smartass. If I find your shooting has anything to do with digging into police business
—or that you’re withholding an atom’s worth of information—you’ll be trading that gown for stripes. And you know I’d love doing it.” He turned his eyes to Ryder. “And if there’s just a sniff of you helping him, you’ll be gone in an hour.”
Squill wheeled and clicked away, Duckworth on his heels.
Mattoon was at his computer, a tumbler of absinthe on his desk. There were trade-offs to the potent liqueur: When he zeroed in on selected thoughts, others slipped into gray; it was as if Mattoon were an archer drawing an arrow—all he saw was the center ring, crisp, large, dominant. All other rings turned soft and indistinct.
Mattoon had used his sharpened focus to draft a letter detailing plans and timetable for the docking facility on Mobile Bay. It would be a shiny plum for the politician announcing Mobile’s partnership with Mattoon Marine, Ltd, and he had already decided who would reap the reward. Mattoon didn’t resent that politicians would claim credit for doing basically nothing; he knew their instincts were tuned to reciprocity: do for me, I do for you. The best part was the more they did for you, the more you owned them. Until you could eat their souls and they’d brush your teeth afterward.
Mattoon had only the final paragraph to write. He sat and tapped out the text:
In conclusion: all property optioned for the MML facility is now locked in. Announcement approaching but will be timed to your needs. Thank you for your most gracious assistance in local matters. I look forward to a solid and profitable future relationship.
Sincerely,
Walter Hutchinson Mattoon, CEO
Mattoon Maritime Limited
Mattoon folded the draft and pressed a button on his desk to summon the steward, Sajeem Ghobali. Mattoon studied his watch; six seconds until the knock on his door. Formerly the assistant steward, Ghobali had been elevated to Mattoon’s personal steward after Valvane’s theft of the wine. Mattoon pressed a second button and the door unlatched, Ghobali’s signal to enter.
“Sir,” Ghobali said, stopping two steps inside the room and snapping a salute.
“Only the captain salutes, Mr Ghobali.”
Ghobali stammered an apology and bowed.
“There you go, Mr Ghobali. Well done.” Mattoon walked to the doorway and held out the envelope. “Take this to Mr Henson. Tell him it’s first priority and should be in ground mail in Mobile with all possible dispatch.”
“Yessir,” Ghobali said, simultaneously attempting to bow and close the door behind him.
Mattoon pictured the process. Henson, the
communications engineer, electronically transferring the text to Samuel Natch, Mattoon Maritime’s shipping agent in Mobile. Natch would print the missive on creamy, embossed Mattoon Maritime stationery, sign it with an electronic facsimile signature, then send it registered mail. The recipient would be reading the letter within two days.
It was the most personal way to communicate, Mattoon thought; using the mail as if he were in Mobile and not hundreds of miles southeast. That, and electronic mail could so easily be seen by the wrong eyes.
His task out of the way, Mattoon sipped from the crystal. He felt a shifting of aspect in his brain, as though birds were winging across it. The phone buzzed, a hushed sound across the thick carpet. Mattoon went to it and pressed the speakerphone.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir…”
“Mr Henson. What can I do for you? Did you get the letter I sent with Ghobali?”
“Yes, sir, I did. To whom would you like it addressed, sir? And are there any special considerations?”
Mattoon shook his head; he’d spent two hours getting the text just right and forgotten to include the recipient; an effect of the absinthe, no doubt.
“My apologies, Mr Henson. The letter is to be sent by registered mail. Remind Mr Natch it is to be on company stationery. And that the letter is personal and confidential. Note that the phrase
‘Personal and Confidential’ should be in capital letters and underscored.”
“Personal and confidential,” Henson repeated. Mattoon heard the man taking notes. “And the recipient and address, Mr Mattoon?”
“It goes to the Honorable Norma S. Philips, Mayor of Mobile, Alabama. I’ve written her previously, so her address is on file. Thank you, Mr Henson.”
“Lemme see it again,” Sandhill said, the hospital TV on the table spanning the bed. Ryder worked the controls of the player, scanning back to the beginning and pressing PLAY. Sandhill stopped spinning the urinal on his finger and leaned closer to the screen.
Ryder said, “It’s hard to watch that old guy flying over the edge like—”
“Stop. Rewind it to just before he goes over. Start just as the guy does the Wallenda.”
Sandhill’s nose was almost touching the TV. Ryder advanced the video a frame at a time. The color was too bright and the edges of the images were soft with blur, but details were visible.
“Stop!” Sandhill barked. He pointed to a frozen image, the old man listing at an angle, just before falling. “Tell me, Ryder, what do you feel when you’re about to fall and can’t do jackshit about it?”
“Panic.”
Sandhill tapped the screen. “That guy look panicked to you?”
Ryder squinted at the monitor. “He looks pretty calm, considering.”
Ryder cranked off several more frames, the man now in the air. Sandhill said, “Stop,” and tapped the screen with the urinal.
“Doesn’t he seem awfully far from the stoop for a guy falling? He should have dropped like Newton’s apple, but look how his back is arched.”
Ryder looked at Sandhill, gave him a confused shrug. Sandhill drummed his fingernails on the urinal. “It looks as if he pushed off, like a diver. Advance it.”
The images jerked forward in time: the man pinwheeling his arms, tumbling into an obese woman in a fruit-basket hat, knocking her backward as he plunged to the pavement.
“That’s why he pushed off,” Sandhill said. “He made sure he hit the woman first. Check her size. Consider the kinetic energy she absorbed.”
Ryder studied the screen. “You’re saying it’s a fake tumble?”
“The woman broke his fall. You can’t see the guy hit the pavement from this angle, but I’ll bet he unfolded across the ground instead of hitting it flat.”
“He bled like a butchered pig, Sandhill.”
“So did a lot of people in
Reservoir Dogs.
You think they’re in the Hollywood Cemetery?”
Ryder stood and began pacing. “So that’s why
he disappeared so fast. He knew he couldn’t stand up to a close look.”
“True, Ryder. Which means you’ve got to find Mr Stumbles.”
“He’s in the wind, gone.”
Sandhill spun the urinal around his finger as he thought. “A guy that old who’s that good? He’s left tracks. We’ll need stills of the guy’s face, close-ups. Can you get them if you’re suspended?”
“No problem; Hembree hates Squill as much as we do. He’ll give the job rush status. I’ll send the shots to police agencies in ‘Bama, Mississippi and Florida.”
“Don’t bother. Send them to insurance agencies.”
“Insurance age—?”
“Not Smilin’ Stan down the street. The big carriers. Direct the photos to their investigative departments.” Sandhill tapped the urinal against the image frozen on the screen. “They’ve dealt with this boy in the past.”
Rose lay on the couch and stared at the monitor on the coffee table. His eyes were red and his fingertips quivered. Jacy’s words echoed in his head.
“Why did you burn that girl up in the fire?…People aren’t supposed to do that. They’re supposed to save people…”
Rose pressed his hands over his ears but Jacy kept talking.
“People save people…save people…save people…”
Rose shut off the monitor.
“SAVE ME, ROSIE!” screamed a voice in his head. “SAVE ME, ROSIE!
Rose shut his eyes. It never helped.
“Save me, Rosie…Save me Rosie…SavemeRosie…”
Fourteen years ago at the farm: Rose’s mother screaming as the attendants took her on the final ride to the hospital, five strong men in white, one at each limb, another trying to control her head, spitting, biting, cursing.
Hang on to her legs, dammit
…
Somebody get the goddamn restraints
…Rose’s mama howling, pissing, grunting.
Goddamn, get ‘em buckled
…The door on the white ambulance opening like a square mouth as they tried to feed his mama into it, bucking, kicking, writhing.
“SavemeRosieSavemeRosieSaveme…”
Then…the white ambulance retreats down the lane from the farmhouse and disappears in a cloud of red dust. The dust floats in the hot air. Somewhere far out on the highway the ambulance changes its mind and returns through still-unsettled dust.
Like magic. Like a dream.
But it’s no longer an ambulance, it’s a station wagon, black, pitted with rust and low over leaking shocks and busted springs. The white-dressed men have become chunky, straw-haired Aunt Junella
and tall, thin Uncle Toll. He’s wearing Big Ben overalls, knees bagged, cuffs rolled high over mud-stained boots. Aunt Junella’s in a tight yellow dress opened up so you can see most of her nay-nays. She squat-kneels in the dusty gravel, her eyes as black as oiled coal, and touches a finger to Rose’s mouth.
“My, you’re a pretty little fellow, Rosie. Ain’t he pretty, Toll? Pretty as a dolly with a dolly’s pretty lips…That older brother of yours around, Rosie? You boys be coming with us for now…”
Rose lay motionless for an hour, until the voices in his head subsided to a misty background hiss. He tried pumping iron to relax, but felt drained. He fell on to the couch. After twice picking up the camera switch and tossing it back on the floor, he finally flicked the camera on. Jacy was awake and sitting on the bed, staring into the air. She seemed so sad. Mama was sad like that. One time she sat in the same chair for a whole bunch of days and nights, not talking, just looking at the wall like it was a television. She made water in the chair. Pretty soon after that Mama went away and Uncle Toll and Aunt Junella were there.
They taught him Playtime.
Truman wasn’t invited to Playtime; he was three years older and hair was starting under his arms and around his thing. Aunt Junella said it made Truman too old to play. It was just the three of them.
Rose looked at Jacy and wished she would smile. More than anything he needed to see her smile.
When Ryder rushed into the hospital room at eight a.m., Sandhill was sitting up and reading the
Mobile Register.
He looked pale, but his eyes were alert.
Ryder said, “Ten minutes ago I got a call from a Karen Pell, head Fradulent Claims investigator for Gibraltar Insurance. Guess what?”
Sandhill closed the paper and set it aside, wincing when he moved too fast.
“She ID’d the fall artist.”
Ryder flipped a thumbs-up. “James T. James, known in the insurance biz as Gentleman Jimmy-Jim. Seems Mr James used to make his living getting hit by cars, slipping on wet floors in supermarkets and falling in icy parking lots. Gibraltar settled three claims with James—under different names—before they caught on.”
“What’s with the ‘Gentleman’ moniker?”
“He was very polite, unctuous. He’d drag himself up from being thumped halfway across the street—seemingly—and start apologizing to everyone. By the time he finished his act the driver and witnesses would be on his side.”
Sandhill nodded. “Made it easy to file big against the carrier. Age?”
“Sixty-two.”
Sandhill raised his eyebrows. “Old for a leaper. But not as old as he looks.”
“Tough life, maybe. Pell hadn’t heard of him pulling anything for a few years, thinks something must have drawn James out of retirement.”
Sandhill nodded slowly. “A good payday, perhaps.”
“Pell said it wouldn’t be a lawsuit against the city, James being too well known in the insurance industry to pull it off. I got the impression he’s sort of a legend.”
“I doubt Jimmy-Jim took this recent tumble just to polish his craft. Wonder what the scam was. Or is.”
Ryder said, “And who’s paying for the performance.”
“You got an address on this moke?”
“He moves around. But when he feels like hanging out he stays with a sister in Montgomery. I have her address and number.”
“Why the smile, Ryder? You got a canary in there?”
Ryder tapped the cellphone at his waist. “I called James’s sister twice today. A woman answered at seven-fifteen. But at seven-forty a male voice answered. It was James. Couldn’t mistake that voice.”
“He suspicious of the calls?”
“I was a wrong number when I got Sis, a siding company when I got James. Gentleman Jimmy-Jim isn’t real polite to telemarketers.”
“No one should be. Good work, Ryder. There gas in your tank?”
“Why?”
“You’ve got to get to Montgomery, find out what Jimbo was jumping for. You have to get him alone and discuss events. Any way possible, you get my drift.”
“He’s seen my face from six inches away, Sandhill. Remember? I won’t be able to get close.”
Sandhill picked up the paper and snapped it open. “You have to do it, Ryder. Improvise. Get creative, for chrissakes.”
He began reading as if Ryder were already gone.
The neighborhood was middle class with tree-lined streets and small trim yards abloom with bougainvillea and myrtle and azaleas. Ryder was parked beside a canebrake a half-block distant from the address, watching an elderly black woman in a pink dress water the front yard of the house where James had answered the phone three hours ago. She was soaking the crape myrtles, seemingly obsessed that some tiny area of root system might escape wetting. He’d been watching the woman water for twenty minutes and was surprised the yard hadn’t turned into a swamp.
He hadn’t known his ruse until two blocks away, when he’d stopped into the Food World for a bottle of juice and noted a contest they were running. But his plan was contingent on the sister being at work, and she was obviously retired, in her seventies. It was steaming in his car and he was desperate for an idea, anything to get him into the house.
Then, luck: the woman stopped drowning her yard, coiled the hose and disappeared into the house. She returned three minutes later and stood beside the white Lincoln town car in the drive, scrabbling through a huge floral purse. His heart beating out
leave now, leave now, leave now,
Ryder watched her climb into the Lincoln and back carefully from the driveway of the single-story ranch house, heading his direction at the pace of an arthritic tortoise. Her rear bumper exhorted followers to
Praise Jesus.
He waited two minutes after she’d passed—eyes straight ahead, hands on the wheel at ten and two—before pulling into the driveway. He walked a flagstone path to a multi-paned front door with lace curtains. The doorbell tolled three somber notes. After a long minute a finger slipped aside the curtain and a cautious male eye stared out.
“What you want?”
Ryder’s sunglasses were outsize wraparounds he’d bought at Food World. He’d also bought a cheap white ball cap. Angled down, the cap and the shades hid the upper part of his face. The bottom half he was disguising with sourball candies.
The candy ruse he’d learned from Harry Nautilus: actions are better disguises than garb. The one time James had seen Ryder, on the stoop outside Nike’s apartment, he was in slacks and dark sport coat, his fresh-shaven jaw clenched tight with fear and resolve. Now it was dark with a
two-day beard, loose and floppy as he rolled hard candies across his tongue, clicking them against his teeth.
He’d removed his suit coat and tie and wore a goofy grin above stooped shoulders. The front of his white shirt had been puffed out to resemble a nascent beer belly. He held up a white envelope found in his glove box and spoke in a high drawl poised at the edge of cartoonish, sucking candy as he spoke.
“Aft’noon, suh. Is Miz Arnett in?”
“She out. What you want with her?”
“I’m Harold Carson, suh. Assistant day man’ger down’t the Food World. Miz Arnett’s this month’s granprize winnuh.”
“What the hell you talking about?”
“She put her name on a entry form for the box. Won a five-hunnut-dollar shoppin’ spree. Anything she wants. I got her citif’cate right here.”
Some of the wariness in the eye was replaced with interest. “Beer and wine too?”
“Anythin’ up to five hunnut dollars.”
The latch clicked and a hand snaked out. “I’m her brother, I’ll see she gets it.”
“I’m s’posed give the citif’cate to the winnuh.”
The fingers wiggled. “I said I’ll see she gets it. She ain’t coming back for hours.”
Ryder let out a loud breath and clicked the candies across his teeth, having a tough time making a decision.
“Tell you what, suh, how about you sign for it?
Maybe show a drivin’ license or something. That’ll take me off the hook with my boss.”
“Yeah, shit, I can do that. Come in while I hunt it down.”
The door opened and Ryder stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. It was an old woman’s home: Nick-nacks and photos covering every horizontal surface, doilies under lamps, a plaster cast of Dürer’s
Praying Hands
on an end table, psalms and inspirational phrases crocheted into throw pillows on the overstuffed couch. There was a scent of liniment in the cool air.
James said, “You wait here while I go and—”
Ryder blew the candies into James’s face like small sugar torpedoes.
“What the hell—” James sputtered as Ryder threw an arm over the man’s silk shirtfront, jammed a leg behind him, and flipped him face-up on the couch. He straddled the man, and pushed his head into the couch cushions with a throw pillow embroidered with the Twenty-third psalm.
“I want to talk about a stunt you pulled in Mobile.”
He lifted the pillow. James’s eyes were wide with surprise and anger. “What you talking about, I ain’t been to Mobile in years.”
Ryder stripped off the cap and shades. Gentleman Jimmy-Jim looked into Ryder’s face. Whispered, “Oh shit.”
Ryder pushed the pillow over James’s face again, harder. Put his mouth beside the man’s ear.
“Mr James, I have no time to play games. I’m looking for two kidnapped girls and I think you have something to do with it.”
Ryder pulled the pillow away, the anger and confusion in the man’s eyes replaced with fear. “Them stolen girls? I had nothing to do with that. That’s sick shit, man. I don’t know nothing about them girls.”