Abruptly, it dawned on Ophelia that her oldest son, Orrick, was staring at her as if he had never before seen her properly. Ophelia glanced down at herself and understood why instantly. She had dressed in an elegant linen suit on Tuesday morning and she was still wearing it on Thursday. Once it had been off white and tastefully crinkled. Now it was dustily gray and crumpled like a fender after a Monday morning, Los Angeles rush hour. Stains from an ickily unknown substance obtained from a jail cell bench blemished her pant legs and back of her jacket. Without bringing her hands to her head, she could tell that her hair was soiled and stuck out in a dozen different directions. Her eyes burned because she hadn’t taken her contacts out for a full two days, much less cleaned them of grit and grime. One eyelid twitched convulsively as if the muscles controlling it were a pariah of crazed involuntary compression.
“The judge was on a fishing trip,” Orrick said slowly and precisely, speaking loud enough to be heard above the wind’s sharp whistle. “That’s why you couldn’t be bailed out until this morning, Mama. We called every senator and representative that we-”
Her hand came up imperiously. Having spent the better part of forty-eight hours in a malodorous jail cell, Ophelia had enough time to think at length about her situation. Angry wasn’t exactly the word for what she was feeling. Anger was a minimal word; it was imprecise, and it was imperfect. A seething rage at the world at large was a more appropriate phrase. But there were specific targets to her fury. Her two non-sons, Oscar, and Orem were one; the absolute ineptness of the pair was considered a single entity to be eliminated as a whole enemy. The enigmatic weather that threatened to swirl them all away down the road was another. The failure of years of chalking up political favors was a third. The fourth was the indolent final remnants of William Douglas McCall which wouldn’t perform exactly to her demand. The fifth was Pascal Waterford.
A cut-rate prostitute who had offered a blowjob to an off-duty police officer and who had spent half the previous evening in jail with Ophelia had several interesting expressions for things that go wrong. Ka-ka pasa. Excrement ensues. Tinky-winkies transpire. Chocolate channel chewies come about. Doodoo occurs. Shit happens. Of course, the prostitute was referring to her lack of money, addiction to crack, and a tendency to run into official authorities who were bribe-proof in a nonofficial capacity. But Ophelia certainly had briefly enjoyed the colorful turns of phrase. They were more than applicable to her situation.
Shit had happened. It had happened to Ophelia. It was still happening. As a matter of fact, she thought that perhaps shit would happen for quite some time.
“Has Mr. McCall’s eternal residue come to light?” Ophelia asked, gritting her teeth. She paused to examine her fingernails. Shit also happened to her hands, her clothing, her skin, and her hair. She took a moment to shudder with hygienical disgust.
Her sons hesitated to glance evocatively at each other. She caught the tail end of the looks and waited for the information that they were loath to tell her. Apparently, Orrick had been nominated as the bearer of the news. Perhaps he had drawn the short straw. “Mayor Waterford hasn’t got the remains,” he said at last, but his tone was definitive.
Ophelia glanced over her shoulder and saw that the Albie Chief of Police Paxton Andrews and half his employees were watching keenly through the glass doors. She smiled coldly at them and waved.
After a moment, Paxton raised his hand and waved back.
“Let’s walk,” she said haughtily.
After five minutes of strolling down the downtown streets wincing from the stinging bite of the vigorous wind, Ophelia returned oddball stares of the few people they encountered with an icy expression of her own. She said to Orrick, “If Waterford doesn’t have them, then who does?”
Orrick looked at the ground, he looked at the sky, and then he looked at the street.
“After all, the two…idiots…left it in the trunk of the car,” she added deliberately. “It could have fallen out onto the road for all we know.” She suddenly looked over her shoulder at her remaining children. “And why aren’t you watching his house, for God’s sake? He could be moving the ultimate remainders right now, for all you know. The ceremony is tomorrow, and we have to get started on a million things right now.”
“But Mama,” Oxford said. “There’s a-” Orrick interrupted with, “We don’t need to watch his house.” The he added, “We got an email.”
“An email,” she repeated. “An email about what?”
“Billy,” Orrick said. His eyes cast around frantically. “With a digital photograph and a newspaper dated for today.”
Ophelia blinked. A large raindrop nailed her squarely between the eyes and she wiped it away with a derisive hand. “I’m failing to see the connection. A photograph of what?”
“Of Billy,” Orrick said impatiently. “Someone beside Waterford must have taken his corpse-I mean his last vestiges.”
Ophelia stopped and two of her sons bumped into her back. She waved them away intolerantly. “The picture was of William Douglas McCall’s remains?” she asked incredulously. “Sent through email?”
Orrick wiped his hair back from his forehead. “They want money for the body. Begging your pardon for the simple description. Cash for corpse. Simple as that. Or they’ll put him in the bayou with the alligators. But first they said they’d use a chainsaw to cut him up and pour Tabasco on the parts, too. We wouldn’t have enough of him to display to a family of fleas.”
“How barbaric,” she commented. It couldn’t be Pascal Waterford, Ophelia realized. He wanted the remnants of William Douglas McCall for Sawdust City. He wanted them as desperately as did Ophelia. If he had his hands on the prize, then he would be shouting it to the world. Or he would actively be conniving a way to obtain the legal rights to the burial decision. Or both.
Ophelia rubbed her mouth with her hand. Perhaps I shouldn’t have stopped the payment on Tamara Danley’s check. At the time it seemed a convenient way to save fifty-something-thousand dollars. As adamant as the woman was about her deceased grandfather, Ophelia had been positive she wouldn’t come chasing after the cash. After all, she still had her precious sculptures. All Tamara Danley was really out was the power of attorney to Mr. McCall’s estate. Certainly, that couldn’t bother that woman.
But if Tamara Danley already had taken the check to the bank and discovered that Ophelia had cleverly stopped the payment, then she could very well be spiteful enough to rescind the power of attorney and possibly grant another one to, oh, say, Pascal Waterford.
Ophelia’s eye ominously began to twitch again. “How much do they want?”
Orrick swallowed uneasily. “Fifty thousand.”
Undoubtedly, that’s convenient, she thought. Ironic, as well, I save fifty K one way and have to fork it out the other. “Did they say where to take it?”
“They’ll be calling your cell phone today,” Orrick said. “With all the details.”
“I wonder if they’ll take a check,” Ophelia pondered aloud.
•
“They haven’t called, Orrick,” Ophelia said for the fifteenth time.
Orrick spared his mother a quick glare. After returning her to her home, she had bathed, changed, and disinfected, not necessarily in that order. Then when she was done, she quaked convulsively and had done it all again. All of which was followed by an incessant consumption of strong coffee and an aggravating, but dedicated pacing that would have irritated the offspring of Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi.
Various Rector offspring had been sent off on errands. Owen went to the bank for the money. Orrick manned the cellular phone. Oakly was pounding on the exterior of the house for some reason. Oliver and Obadiah were at the Mortuary, ensuring that business was running along smoothly. Oxford made a trip to get supplies.
Busy running items in her head, Ophelia hadn’t paid much attention. Sipping at a cup of café au lait, she finally slammed the delicate china on the sideboard in the dining room and said, “What in the name of
God is Oakly doing outside?”
Orrick looked at her oddly. “Nailing up boards on the windows,” he said, after a moment.
“Boards on my windows,” she said faintly. “Why on earth would he be doing that? Has he lost his mind? I’m going to-”
The cell phone rang. Both Rectors turned to look at it.
“Shall I answer it?” Orrick asked.
Ophelia composed herself. “I think not. I very much feel halfway human again and I shall deal with the person or persons who have committed this sin against the city of Albie and the Rectors.”
The cell phone was picked up on the third ring and she had pressed the accept button before the answering service made its connection. “This is Ophelia Rector,” she said magnanimously.
“This is…Long Dong Silver,” a man’s roughly concealed voice said.
“This isn’t Pascal Waterford?” she enquired frigidly.
“Why would he be calling you?” the voice asked suspiciously. “He couldn’t come up to snuff-never mind that.”
“Well, Long, is it? I guess he wouldn’t. Is this the individual who sent www.RectorMortuary.com a certain email about a certain property that is desired?”
“I sent an email, yeah. And it’s not a piece of land, it’s a stiff, and let me tell you, the old boy’s starting to get riper than the principal’s house the day after Halloween.”
Ophelia growled.
Orrick protectively covered his nose and mouth with one hand and his testicles with the other one.
“Long,” she gritted. “I’ll have what you wanted within an hour. Shall we meet to complete our transaction?”
“No police?”
“Did you read the paper today, Long?” Ophelia snapped. “I just got out of jail and I’m disinclined to continue supporting the local policeman’s benevolent society.”
“You were in jail?” Long said incredulously, forgetting to conceal his voice. Ophelia became certain it wasn’t Pascal.
Pity, she thought.
“What for?” the voice dropped again.
“Assault on my son’s genitalia,” she uttered callously. “Whatever’s left of them and him are in the hospital. And he’s my son. Just think what I would do with someone I don’t really know and aren’t related to.”
“Goddamn, lady,” Long said admiringly. “I hear you really want the old boy. I can’t quite figure it out. He was the meanest, shittiest, obnoxious, thieving cocksucker who ever walked the earth and there are people everywhere who are doing a jig at his death.”
“So you knew Mr. McCall, did you?” Ophelia said sweetly. That makes it all the more interesting.
“It doesn’t matter,” Long snarled. “Are you tracing this call?”
Ophelia sighed. “Dear, if I were having you traced, the police would be knocking at your door at this very moment in time.” She considered. “Well, maybe they wouldn’t be knocking. You know, having spent some recent time in jail, I’m told that people who steal human remains are lower than pedophiles. In the jail hierarchy, that is. Apparently, they punish people like that with knives fashioned from various implements found in prison. Plastic spoons sharpened to a point and the like. It’s a fascinating tidbit. Something to chew on.”
Long was silent.
“Long?”
“Just be ready when I call you in two hours. You and no one else. No police or there’ll be Billy tartare in the old reservoir tonight.” Long disconnected with a vicious grunt.
Ophelia pulled the cell phone away from her ear and studied it as if it held all the answers. The number listed was a public telephone. A payphone probably in the back of a decrepit dive of a bar. It doesn’t matter.
“Orrick,” she said regally. “Has Owen got the money?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Orrick said. “Twenties, fifties, and hundreds. In a black shoulder bag. Are certain you want to pay the man for what already belongs to us, Mama?”
Ophelia put the cell phone on the sideboard and thought about it.
“Let’s make a phone call, shall we?” she said. She pointed at her phone and added, “The number is in the directory. You’re going say your name is…oh, John Smith, and you’re from…the city of Shreveport, specifically from the mayor’s office. The city of Shreveport is very interested in the eternal remains of William Douglas McCall, also known as Bayou Billy, and you wish to obtain their permission in burying him in their fair city.”
Orrick looked at the phone and then back at his mother. “Who am I calling?”
“Miss Tamara Danley or perhaps her…what’s the word? Her partner, Kameko. Yes, that was her name.”
“What are we offering?”
“Oh, nothing dear. We’re just fishing for information. What I really want to know is if Pascal Waterford went to Danley for a power of attorney. If Danley is amenable at all, then state that you’ll FedEx the paperwork to her promptly.” Ophelia smiled grimly. “Go ahead, look under the ‘D.’s.”
Orrick dialed, then spoke, and answered. He gave out the prescribed information like a pro and even Ophelia was impressed with how easily and convincingly her eldest child could lie. He nodded to himself, thanked the party on the other end of the line, and pressed the ‘end’ button.
“Pascal’s got the power of attorney,” Ophelia said neutrally, not waiting for Orrick to fill her in.
“Yes, Mama,” he said warily. “She isn’t happy with you. Seems as though you stopped payment on a big check.”
“Pure blackmail,” Ophelia sniffed. She perked up. “Well, then, here’s what’s happening. You’re going to contact Oscar and Orem and tell them not only are they fired from Rector Mortuary, but that they should feel free to take their father’s name in perpetuity. Then I’ll need a list of all the politicians and officials you contacted in order to facilitate my release. It seems their campaign monies are going to be severely curtailed upon their next election. Then, we may surmise what else is occurring and what will occur. Mayor Waterford has no money with which to pay a ransom, so the kidnapper, I say kidnapper lightly, has obviously read the paper and understands the conflict between myself and Pascal Waterford. This person, identified as Long Dong Silver, and God knows where he got that name.” She paused as Orrick choked and then cleared his throat. “This Long person has decided to hit us up for the money instead. Right now, Pascal is scrambling for the cash because it seems as though he actually has the legal right to bury the remains where he so chooses. However, what he doesn’t have is, William Douglas McCall. Thusly I will meet with Long and trade the money for the eternal vestiges, and we will hold on to them quietly until Sawdust City goes down like a mob squealer in the Hudson River. Then we will persevere and ultimately triumph. Problem solved.”
“O-kay,” Orrick said dumbly.
“Of course, I’ll need that Magnum .44 that belonged to your grandfather,” Ophelia announced innocently. “It’s on the shelf of my closet. Bring the ammunition, too.”
Orrick stared at his mother and then silently withdrew from the room, still covering his testicles protectively.
•
“Are you really going on your own, Mama?” Oxford asked carefully.
“I don’t see the danger,” Ophelia answered and stuffed the oversized pistol into her handbag. “Hand me that umbrella, Owen. It’s raining outside like God let upon the flood gates. Did someone say something about bad weather? I didn’t have a chance to watch the Weather Channel while I was…otherwise occupied.”
Ophelia glanced up to see her six sons looking at each other oddly.
Oliver and Obadiah said together, “It’s Alexa, Mama.”
“Alexa?” Ophelia said. “Alexa who?”
“Alexa is a class five hurricane that came ashore near Houston earlier today, Ma,” Orrick said. “I sent the twins and the wife to Orlando to be with their other grandmother.”
Ophelia stared out the only window that wasn’t boarded up, the one in the door. “Oh, that explains the storminess, doesn’t it?”
Owen
said, “It’s on a direct path for-”
Ophelia held up her imperious hand again. “A simple storm isn’t going to stop me from claiming what belongs to me, Owen.”
Owen’s mouth slammed shut.
“When we make the trade,” Ophelia tightened her coat around her waist as she issued instructions, “I shall call you on the cell phone and you will bring the hearse to carry the final remnants back to the mortuary. Understood?”
There were several murmured, “Yes, Ma’am.”s.
•
Ophelia parked at the entrance of the Albie Cemetery and watched the wind bend trees nearly in half. The groundskeeper was going to have to do some serious work in the days to come. From the position she was parked in she could see the boisterous swell of the Sabine River. It was tickling the edges of the levee and already water was making its way into the cemetery.
She started to pull out her cell phone to call the mayor to tell him to get some National Guardsmen out here to start a sandbag brigade when the truck pulled up beside her. Two people sat inside and stared at her. One was tall and male. The other was petite and obviously female. Both wore black ski masks.
The truck was smeared with red mud. There was a large chest freezer in the back. Ophelia looked at the license plate but it had been removed.
The man got out of the driver’s side and approached Ophelia’s BMW. She lowered her window just enough to say through the window, “Are you Long Dong Silver by any chance?”
“You got the money, lady?” he demanded agitatedly.
“If you’ve got William Douglas McCall I do,” she said right back.
He jerked a thumb at the chest freezer in the back of the truck. “He’s not getting any deader or stinkier, so fork it over.”
Ophelia glared. “I need to see the eternal remains first.”
Long’s eyes rolled. “Oh, for the love of Pete. You want to see the rotting corpse? Whatever tickles your pickle, lady. Shall I leave the freezer with you, too?”
Life and Death of Bayou Billy Page 30
