The two blonds appeared as vacuous as before. Their eyes were a little dull, and I guessed they were on something beyond the daiquiris they were drinking. Probably redbirds, which were popular with hookers back then. My gaze caught the darkhaired girl’s eyes, and we stayed locked that way for a few seconds. Then she extended her hand across the table, and said, “I’m Nell Bigelow.”
“Manfred Webern,” I told her, and took her hand. It was dry and her grip was firm.
“I’m pleased to meet you, but I wish you hadn’t done that to Billy Jack.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is he a friend of yours?”
She shook her head and her dark hair rippled in slow, sensual waves about her head. “No, but his wife is, and when something like this happens he usually goes home and beats her up.”
“Ahhh, bullshit,” the tall blond said. “She likes it well enough or she’d go someplace else. People get what they want in this life.”
“Thanks for the five-and-dime psychiatry, Janice,” Nell Bigelow said, her voice dripping sarcasm. She looked across the table at me and then pointed languidly at the blond woman, her palm held upward. “Meet Janice Smith, freelance expert.”
The blond ignored her. “Have a few drinks with us, Tush Hog,” Sparks said.
“I only have time for one,” I said, holding up my glass. “And please…just call me Hog.”
“Your choice, man,” he replied, the glee still fresh on his face.
“Hog it is, but from what I saw tonight you sure as hell ain’t been demoted.”
“How in the world did you ever get a nickname like that?” Nell Bigelow asked me.
I sighed. “I came from a little farming community down in Texas, and everybody was familiar with animals. You take a hog.…If you open a gate about two inches, and if he can see daylight, you better not let him get his snout in that gap, because he’ll wedge it open and get through it. I was like that at football. I played offensive center, and if I could see two inches of daylight I could get my ball carrier through it, especially on close downs where we were just going for a foot or two.”
Sparks laughed. “I thought maybe it had something to do with fucking.”
“Pardon?” I asked. He’d lost me; I couldn’t see the connection.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I read somewhere that a hog’s orgasm lasts five minutes. Might be handy with the ladies.”
This little comment rang a bell with the tall blond. “Shit, Jasper!!” she squealed. “Who’d want to fuck a damn pig? You ever seen a pig’s dick? They look like a goddamned corkscrew.”
Nell Bigelow began gathering up her things. “Would you please let me out, Raymond?” she asked Weller.
“Sure, hon,” the old man replied.
“What’s the deal?” Sparks asked. “Why are you leaving us, Nellie girl?”
She gave him a sour look and rolled her eyes. “The high intellectual tone of this conversation is just too much for a smalltown waif like me, Jasper.”
Weller got to his feet, and she scooted from the booth. Once she was standing the old man reached for her coat and politely held it for her. It was a three-quarter-length silver-gray fox coat that looked intoxicating with the black dress she wore. Buttoning her coat, she treated me to a warm smile. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Manfred,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you around town.”
“Do you live here in Biloxi?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m just visiting with my aunt for a few weeks,” she said, and glided off across the barroom.
“What’s the story on her?” I asked as soon as she was out of earshot.
“She’s one of those daddy’s girls,” Sparks said with a shrug. “And in her case Daddy owns about half the Delta.”
“Really?” I asked without much interest.
“Oh yes,” he said, crunching a mouthful of ice from his drink. “And she liked you, I could tell.”
“You think so?” I asked with a doubtful laugh.
“No doubt,” he replied. “I’ve known Nell a long time, and I can read her pretty good. We were in Ole Miss together for a couple of years. That was before I was asked to leave, of course.”
“Maybe he’s done got a old lady, Jasper,” the tall blond said. “You ever think about that?”
Sparks ignored her, and for a moment his brows knitted thoughtfully. “Might be something you ought to look into, Hog. The man that taps into that could set himself up real nice.”
I shrugged and shook my head. “Just curious. Women are a dime a dozen, anyway.”
“Well, fuck you, Mr. Pig,” the tall girl spat.
“How about a dollar a dozen?” I asked, leering at her as offensively as I could. “Does that get the bidding more in your price range?”
Sparks cackled once again and slapped the girl on her thigh. She gave me a look that was pure malice while she groped around in her purse and came out with a package of Viceroys and a folder of matches.
“What brings you down to Biloxi, Hog?” Weller asked offhandedly.
“Tarpon fishing, eventually.”
“No kidding?” Sparks asked. “You go in for that shit?”
I nodded and held up two fingers. “A couple of near-worldrecord tarpon have been caught in the past year not more than three miles from where we’re sitting right now. Chances are strong that the next record fish is going to be pulled out of these waters, and next spring I plan to be out there going for it. I came down early to do a little winter fishing and find me a good charter boat to book for next year.”
“I hate fish,” the small girl announced. No one paid her the least attention; it was as though a random thought had bubbled up out of the thick, viscous fluid of her drug-addled psyche, enjoyed its moment in the sun, and then was heard no more. It was the only sound she uttered the whole time I was at the table, and I never saw her again.
“Big-game fishing gets pretty expensive, doesn’t it?” Sparks asked. “I mean, boats and guides and all...”
I shrugged. “It’s really not too bad, and I’ve got some savings.”
“Yeah, I heard,” he said with a giggle.
“You can hear all kinds of things, Jasper,” I said calmly. “Sometimes they’re true and sometimes they aren’t.”
“You’re on the money there,” he replied, nodding wisely and sipping his drink. “In fact, some of the things they say about me are actually true, if you can believe it.”
I nodded his wise nod right back at him. “But it’s been my experience that the only thing worse than a false accusation is a true accusation,” I said.
“Yeah, but the best thing is no accusations at all.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I replied, raising my glass.
The tall blond looked back and forth between me and Sparks, perplexed and a little annoyed. “I wish you two would just go ahead and say whatever it is you’re trying to say and quit all this….” Her voice dwindled off. Instead of carrying the thought further, she decided to nestle coyly up against Sparks’s arm once again. “Besides, Jasper,” she purred, “I don’t know why you’re even talking to Mr. Pig, anyway. I don’t like him.”
“I do,” Sparks said. “I think ol’ Hog may be a stand-up guy.”
“Well, I think he’s an asshole,” she replied petulantly.
“Guess what?” I asked.
They looked at me questioningly. “You’re both right,” I said, my voice a conspiratorial whisper.
Sparks and Weller laughed, and even the small girl managed a hesitant smile. The tall blond merely stared more daggers my way. I was having a fine old time chatting with the so-called head of the so-called Dixie Mafia and his entourage. But I didn’t want to seem too eager. I bantered on for a few more minutes while I finished off my drink, and then I got to my feet. “Well, boys,” I said, “now that our interests are no longer in conflict, maybe I can buy you a round the next time, and we can have a real visit. Right now I need to get to bed so I can get an early start in the morning.”
“We’re here most nights, Hog,” Sparks said, and raised his glass in a farewell salute. “Come back anytime.”
I stepped outside the Gold Dust Lounge and took a deep breath. The breeze coming in off the gulf was chilly, and the dull blue glare of the halogen streetlights gave the cracked and buckled asphalt of the parking lot a ratty look that clashed with the dozen or so fine cars clustered around the building. I walked over to my Cadillac and fumbled around with the door key for a few seconds. At last I got the thing unlocked and swung the door open. The car had six-way power seats, and they could be operated even with the ignition turned off. The passenger side seat had been tilted all the way rearward, and Nell Bigelow lay stretched out there, her fur coat thrown over her upper body like a blanket, her hair dark and enticing against the soft leather of the upholstery. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” she asked with an inviting smile.
Four
I tossed the keys over and told her to drive. After four or five ounces of straight whiskey on an empty stomach I’d been a little worried about getting on the road even before I found her in the car.
“Where to?” she asked.
“You know the town better than I do, so you decide. But I need something more than coffee. I haven’t eaten since early this morning.”
“I’ve got just the place,” she said, and steered the big car expertly out into the street.
It turned out to be a restaurant called Karl’s Grotto that was only a couple of blocks from the center of the town. The place was dark and woodsy inside, and smelled of seafood, hot butter, and fresh bread. We arrived not long before closing time, but everybody seemed to know and like my companion. The manager led us to a booth in the far rear corner and told us to take our time.
“What’s good?” I asked Nell as soon as the waitress appeared with the menus.
“The sauteed flounder is out of this world.”
“I’ll have it,” I said. “Don’t you want something too?”
She shook her head and her dark hair rippled. I examined her face closely for the first time. It was a little too fine-boned and severe to be considered truly beautiful by modern standards. Her eyebrows were a bit too heavy, and there was a cool distance in her gray eyes. But her lips were full and sensual, and her skin had the deep richness of well-aged ivory. Back at the bar I’d put her age at thirty. Here, up closer and in better light, I added five years. Which was about right if she’d been in college with Jasper Sparks as he’d claimed.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m really not hungry, but if you get the fries with your fish instead of rice I’ll nibble a few off your plate.”
As soon as the waitress whisked off with my order I smiled across at my companion and asked, “By the way, how in hell did you get in my car?”
“The old coat hanger trick,” she said with a smile.
“That’s what I thought. But why?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t really have any objections,” I said with a grin. “But I haven’t exactly been swamped lately with pretty women, so I’m a little curious. ...”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Manfred.”
“You like ‘em well padded, eh?” I asked with a laugh.
“So you could stand to lose twenty or twenty-five pounds.” She shrugged dismissively. “Big deal.”
The waitress appeared with my salad and a basket of hot yeast rolls. As I attacked the salad, Nell began carefully buttering the rolls. She had long hands with long, sensitive fingers, and their movements were graceful and deliberate. “Actually, I recognized you when you first walked up to the table,” she said. “And right then I decided that I wanted to get to know you better.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. “Have we met before?”
She shook her head. “No, but I lived in Dallas for a year and I read about you in the papers. The Dallas News did a big write-up on you when you shot that guy Billy Jack mentioned. What was his name?”
“Ragsdale. Dooley Ragsdale.”
“Yeah, that’s him. And I remember that the paper called you ‘the scholarly cop’ because you read all the time. The women down at the public library said you’d checked out history books about Greece and Rome and things that nobody else had ever fooled with.”
“That’s about all I read,” I said. “History.”
“Why history?”
I shrugged and gave her a sheepish grin and probably blushed. “I don’t know. I guess I just want to figure out how civilization got where it’s at and why things are the way they are.”
“That’s a laudable endeavor,” she said, and slipped a bite of roll into her mouth. “Anyway, you impressed me when I first read about you. To tell you the truth, I kinda wanted to meet you even back then.”
“How about you?” I asked, a little embarrassed by her frank admission. “What’s a nice woman like you doing hanging out with a guy like Jasper?”
“How do you know I’m nice?”
“Please,” I said. “I was a cop for seventeen years.”
“Okay, okay.” She laughed. “Can’t I pass as a femme fatale at least once in my life?”
I shook my head and laughed with her. “It’ll never work,” I said. “So tell me about you and Jasper.”
“Well, there’s really not much to tell. We went to Ole Miss together for a couple of years.”
“So you’re friends?”
“Casual friends. And he can be quite amusing. We went out a few times when we were in college, but he wasn’t my type. But we hung around together some until he got kicked out for breaking in the registrar’s office—”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because that’s where they kept the money. He’s a thief, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I thought maybe it was just a prank,” I said.
“Oh, hell no…He’d never waste his time on a prank. It was right after registration, and there were several thousand dollars in the till. Anyway, he’s just one of those people you keep running into as the years go by. He’s a cut-up and a lot of fun in a group, and he always calls me when I come down here for Christmas if he’s in the area.”
“Do you feel safe around somebody like him?” I asked. “I mean, people like that can be pretty volatile.”
She smiled a calm, slow smile. “I feel safer with Jasper than I would with most of these Biloxi cops.”
“He likes you that much?”
She laughed. “He likes me well enough. But besides that he knows that if anything happened to me down here, then he’d have to tangle with my daddy, and that’s about the last thing in the world he wants.”
A couple of minutes later the waitress set a big platter in front of me and poured Nell’s coffee. The flounder was huge. “Don’t you want some of this?” I asked.
“Maybe one bite. Down near the tail where it’s seared good.” She held up the salt shaker. “May I?” she asked.
“Be my guest,” I said.
I flaked off a nice chunk of the fish from just where she’d wanted it while she lightly dusted the fries with sea salt. Then I held the fork across the table. She opened her mouth and I fed her the flounder. To me there’s something sweetly erotic about feeding a woman. I could have sat there and shoveled the whole thing into her and gone hungry myself. She closed her eyes and chewed delicately. “Ummmm ...” she said. “This place is a national treasure.”
As soon as I took a bite myself I knew that she wasn’t exaggerating; I’d never tasted better fish. She reached down and plucked one of the long shoestring fries off my plate and delicately bit the end. I saw a quick flash of pink tongue behind healthy pink gums and small, pearly white teeth.
“So what brings you to Biloxi?” she asked.
“Fishing,” I said with a grin. “Don’t you remember?”
“Ah, yes, you’re going after tarpon next spring.…Right?” she asked.
I nodded. “Wanna come?”
“Are you asking me out?” she asked with an i
mpish smile.
“I think so,” I replied. “I’m out of practice with this kind of thing.”
“Then the answer is yes. I’d like to go out with you. But it can’t be fishing.”
“Why not?”
“Because I get seasick in a swimming pool. And the only place I can stand fish is on a plate.”
“That bad, huh?”
She nodded. “No boats for little Nell.” She reached into her purse and took out a fine gold pen and a small gold case. Pulling a cream-colored card from the case, she quickly jotted down a phone number. “This is where I’m staying at my aunt’s house. Sorry, but I don’t have my own phone there, and she’s something of a ding-a-ling. ...”
“I can handle her. Goofy old ladies are right down my alley.”
“So tell me about yourself,” she said.
“There’s nothing much to tell,” I said. “I was raised down in central Texas, went off to Korea, then joined the Sheriff’s Department in Dallas. Boring, boring ...”
“Ever been married?”
“Once. I’ve got a daughter.”
“What’s her name?”
“Katherine. Everybody calls her Kathy, of course. And I’ve got a granddaughter, too. She’s three.”
“Neat. But no wife, I assume?”
I shook my head. “She left me, and I almost lost Kathy too.”
“Really?” she asked. “What happened?” There was real sympathy in her eyes. I suppose that’s what caused me to tell her the story.
“We divorced. My wife got primary custody, then she spent the next ten years trying to turn the kid against me. Oh, I kept all my visitation days and holidays and all that, but it was a strain. Then when Kathy was nineteen and in college, she came to me one Thanksgiving, and said, ‘Daddy, I figured it all out.’ I asked her what she’d figured out, and she said, ‘Back when you two split up, Mama was doing the milkman and the meter man and the gas man all three.’ I laughed and asked about the cable TV guy, and you know what Kathy said?”
Nell shook her head, but she was grinning.
“She told me, ‘She would have been doing him too except that he was a Baptist preacher on the side, and he wouldn’t go for it.’”
The Sweet and the Dead Page 3
