South, America

by Rod Davis

  “Thanks,” she finally said. “I appreciate that . . . a lot.” Another pause. “So I don’t have to explain calling you anymore.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  We were silent again.

  “So, Elfego . . .” I said.

  “Elfego.”

  “We got together.”

  “At the bar.”

  “Rio Blanche, yeah.”

  “Did he tell you about Mississippi?”

  I was walking around my living room, staring at familiar objects as though they were props in some movie in which I had been mistakenly cast. “He sure did.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the guy who knew your brother, for one.”

  “Trey.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told you about Trey and Terrell, then.”

  “They’d been there. Together, he said. By the way, he’s a piece of work, Elfego.”

  “He’s not so bad.”

  “I guess if you know him. Anyway, he said I should tell you they were at the Rio Blanche even though you already knew. For what it’s worth, he was taking it hard.”

  “Hard?”

  “Well, in that he was pretending he had it under control.”

  “Repression. Transference.”

  “What?”

  “Shrink stuff. Counselor, I should say, but pretty much everybody calls us shrinks down here, so I just go with the flow.” She paused, as if catching a memory. “You know, he doesn’t want to deal. I talked to him on the phone. It was difficult. For both of us.”

  “What did he mean, you already knew about the Rio Blanche?”

  “Because I did know, or sort of did. Elfego told me the same thing, about Trey being there. But I wanted to know if he’d tell you the same or change it around. I felt like he’d be more open with you, since you were a stranger but also someone connected to me, and sort of to Young Henry—”

  “Hold on.” I was back in the kitchen, and took a half-empty bottle of French house red from the counter. Or maybe it was half-full. I cradled the phone in my ear while I took out the cork and poured some into a drinking glass. I was trying to get my mind around this and it wasn’t quite happening.

  “Why didn’t you mention that to me before? For that matter why didn’t you tell the police? You told them your brother didn’t know any violent people. Wasn’t that what you said?” I took a drink of the red. Not bad, and only seven dollars a bottle.

  “Okay. I understand. But don’t be like that, not now. Please. I just . . . I just didn’t know if I wanted to get into it all with you. You were so good to help me all you already did. And I just didn’t want to go to the Rio Blanche, get into a lot of stuff with Elfego about him and Young Henry that maybe I wouldn’t want to listen to right now. Can you understand that? You know? I’m sorry. Maybe I was wrong.”

  I felt bad for raising my voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I sound like a basket case.”

  “Far from it.”

  “That’s kind. Also a lie.”

  “Whatever kind of case you are, it seems like the best thing would be to call the cops right now about your house, to be safe. And what if it’s just burglars?”

  “It’s not. Trust me.”

  “Call 911.”

  “Did Elfego tell you a lot about Trey?”

  “Not that much. But that wasn’t my question. Isn’t this police stuff? Shouldn’t you be calling them? Rather than driving around and talking?”

  “I heard you. But I can’t. It doesn’t even matter. I know who’s at my house.”

  “You mean Trey?”

  “Or some of his low-life friends.”

  I took another sip and flashed back to her reactions in the Marigny. Anger in that sadness.

  “I still wish you’d call the cops. It’s the best way to handle it. Seriously.”

  She blurted out a quick laugh, probably from the tension. “Ordinarily I like that kind of perseverance in a man. But not right now.”

  “Uh-huh. Where are you now?”

  “I’m just getting on I-20.”

  “So you’re not headed for Oxford?”

  “I don’t know where I’m headed. I’m just driving.”

  “Let’s think of a plan.”

  “Yeah, a plan. Be a man with a plan, Jack.”

  “How far to Birmingham? An hour?”

  “About.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  Something came to me so I figured to just say it. “Here’s an idea. Go on to Birmingham for the night. Instead of Oxford. It’s not the way anyone would expect you to go. Find a decent motel. A place you can park in the back or in a garage.”

  Road noise again while she thought about it. “I go to Birmingham on business a lot. There’s a Marriott down around Homewood.”

  “Would Trey know about it?”

  “I go to different ones but he wouldn’t know one way or another.”

  “Okay, go there and get a room. Get off the road.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ll drive up and stay with you. We’ll go to Oxford tomorrow if you want and take care of the ashes and all that. It’s really not all that far from Birmingham so you’d be most of the way there tonight.”

  She was thinking about it. I expected her to.

  “Jack, it’s a long drive for you.”

  “I could be there by one or two in the morning if I leave now. It’s not like I could sleep.”

  “And you’d stay with me?”

  I knew what she meant. “Nothing funny.”

  “I wasn’t implying. . .”

  “Just until you feel safe or we find out if this guy really is looking for you. Which, by the way, why would he be?”

  “I’m sorry to be such trouble,” she said after a moment. She didn’t respond to the question about Trey.

  “You’re not trouble. Like I said.”

  “I know.”

  “So I’m coming.”

  “I mean I do know you’re busy and you have a life that doesn’t involve a crazy woman from Alabama. I don’t mean to act like you have to drop everything for me.”

  “You’re afraid. It’s all over your voice.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  I could hear hard breathing again.

  “I’m going to throw some things in a bag. I’ll call you when I get closer.”

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just hate to get off the phone.”

  “I do, too, but if we don’t, I’ll never get there.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Turn on the radio. Listen to some music. You’ll be fine. When you get to the motel order a pizza. Watch HBO. I’ll call you when I get to Meridian or around there.”

  “Okay.”

  “All right.”

  “I feel better now.”

  “I do, too.”

  We said goodbye.

  I finished the glass of wine. The bottle was tempting but I had a long drive and coffee from somewhere on the road was the only way to go. I packed up quickly. I own a police-style Remington 12-gauge and keep it in a closet. I don’t particularly like guns anymore, but in this town you have to be practical. In Dallas I kept a Beretta, but one night, after too much drinking and too many bad thoughts, I held it in a way I shouldn’t have, against my ear. Next day I dropped it into the Trinity River.

  I zipped the shotgun and an unopened box of shells into a brown waterproof sheath. I carried it and my canvas duffel bag down the narrow walkway leading from my apartment past the garden and to the gate opening onto the street, where I had to park. My Explorer was an older model, not all that appealing to thieves, although, this be
ing New Orleans, a stolen car figured in everyone’s future. For some reason our block had been lucky on that score.

  I stowed the gear in the back and threw an old Army poncho over it. Then I returned to the apartment to check that the timer light in the living room was set, the water was off on the leaky shower faucet, and so on. I unplugged my laptop. Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed some notepads. Some part of me hadn’t decided whether this would become professional, too. As in something for Ray, or maybe some kind of story I could sell. I needed to talk to Elle about it more. Much more. But now she was scared and I just wanted to get there. I locked up and went back to the Explorer.

  Before buckling in, I took a look around the street. Quiet, almost a storybook of stoops and French doors and pastels. Except for the rusty Chevy and the pile of junk outside one of the row houses a half-block away. Word was it was an eviction after a bad break-up.

  Leaving the Marigny, I picked up Elysian Fields lakeside to the I-10 ramp and then glided up the highway with the city and all its lights and parties and people not involved in murders slipping behind me and unknown miles of darkness, fog, and deep Southern forest ahead.

  And Elle.

  5

  The motel was on a residential exit just before getting into the city’s southern suburbs, easy enough for me to find in the late night fog that draped the Appalachian foothills. It was almost 2 a.m. when she opened the door. She’d been sleeping in gym shorts and a baggy gray T-shirt and was only half-awake. I shut the door behind me and latched it. She hugged me and I hugged back, sort of woodenly, and then she sat on the edge of the king-size bed.

  “Do you want to talk now?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but I’m tired and you’re asleep. Let’s wait until morning.”

  She yawned and her head dropped toward her chest. I took that for a yes. I made a quick trip to the bathroom. Her overnight kit from New Orleans was on the sink but hadn’t been opened. I looked pretty haggard in the harsh light of the motel mirror, so I splashed some water on my face before going back into the room. I took off my deck shoes and socks and lay on the bed near her, still in my jeans and a black T-shirt.

  She was on her side, facing away. This is all I had been thinking about for hours. That and what might have made her so scared she couldn’t go home and couldn’t call the police. I looked over her shoulder. She was asleep.

  I rolled back and let my head sink into a pillow. I drifted away into dreams I couldn’t recall. That was good. It was the ones I could recall that were bad.

  In the morning, she was awake, sitting in a chair near the window, looking out at the trees and hills of the little valley in which the motel sat. She had made coffee from the machine by the sink. I watched her a few minutes while I tried to wake up. The clock on the side dresser said nine-forty-five so we had slept pretty well.

  When she heard me move, she turned and smiled.

  “Good morning.”

  I tried not to look like I’d just woken up.

  “Good morning.”

  “I needed that sleep. Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a bad drive. Not much traffic.” I reached over to a glass of water I’d left on the bedside table and drank it all.

  “I’m really glad you’re here.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that kind of woman.”

  “What kind?”

  “Complicated.”

  “I like complicated.” I stood and stretched.

  “I’m going to grab a shower,” she said, glancing at the clock. “I didn’t want to wake you up before.” She went into the bathroom and turned on the water. The door didn’t catch the latch and swung part way open. I heard the spray coursing over her body and tried not to think about it.

  “What about the cars?” she called out.

  “I was wondering about that. Maybe we could leave yours here somewhere unless you want to drive it to Oxford.”

  “No. And I don’t want to go back to T-town, either.” Splashing noises. “So we could take yours? I guess nobody would know it had anything to do with me.”

  “Right.”

  “I mean it would work out better that way. After last night.”

  “Yeah, it would. I know a place near the airport for long-term. I’ve used it before when I had to fly out of Birmingham. It’ll be fine there. It’s covered parking.”

  “Okay, I guess. I can come get it later.”

  “I’ll bring you back here after the funeral.”

  “Okay. That’s good. You don’t mind?”

  “I’d rather do it this way.”

  I heard the water turn off and the shower stall door slide open. A few minutes later the bathroom door opened all the way and she emerged through a bank of steam, a big white towel around her torso. Her hair wet and glistening. I pretended to sort through my bag for clothes.

  “You should get dressed,” she said. “Then we can go get breakfast.”

  “You clean up good.”

  Just the hint of a response in her face. “I have to change.”

  I went into the bathroom. I heard the plop of the towel onto the carpet and the clatter of hangers in the closet as she got her clothes.

  When I came out, tucking a dark blue polo into the same jeans, she was sitting at the small pressed-wood table near the window. She had on faded jeans and a loose yellow cotton blouse. She didn’t waste any time.

  “Trey killed Young Henry.”

  I stuffed my dopp kit into my duffel bag, zipped it up, and walked over to the window. I peered out the side of the draw curtain into the parking lot, which wasn’t very full, although it was a weekday. The sky was blue, almost cloudless.

  “But I don’t know what to do about it.”

  I let the curtain drop and looked at her. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  She twirled a Styrofoam cup in her slender fingers. For the first time, I noticed her nail polish was light blue.

  “I’ve known all along. Before I even got to New Orleans. First it was like a bad feeling I didn’t want. But now I’m sure.”

  “From what Elfego said.”

  “More than that, but yeah.”

  I pulled back the chair from the other side of the table and sat across from her.

  “It was the necklace. You know, I asked you about it? Trey gave him one and he always wore it. When I didn’t see it, it just hit me that Trey had taken it back. I freaked. I can’t say why. So I took it out on you.”

  “You were in shock.”

  “Not now.”

  She reached across the table and covered my right hand with her left. “There’s something else.” Her palm was warm.

  “Young Henry stole something from Trey.”

  I looked away involuntarily.

  She hesitated, as if trying to work out her thoughts.

  “A painting, something from Mexico, or actually, Spain. A Spanish artist. It shows the Virgin Mary.”

  “The Virgin of Guadalupe?”

  “It’s about when she appeared to an Aztec peasant back after the Conquest. You know the story?”

  “Yeah.

  She seemed surprised. “You Catholic?”

  “No. But I’m from Texas. She shows up, gives the Aztec some roses, he shows them to the Spanish priests, Mexico is converted.” I must have ended that with a smirk because she responded with a frown.

  “Anyway . . . this painting shows her with the flowers, some kind of nature scene behind her. I remember Young Henry saying it was a masterpiece and not that many people knew about it. He really went on about how much it impressed him. He taught art history, you know, in high school.”

  She stopped a moment, her thoughts gone back to her brother. “That was a couple of months ago. We got to where we didn’t talk all that often lately.” She stopped again. “He said he pl
anned to take it because Trey owed him.”

  Her hand tightened around mine.

  “Young Henry said it was worth millions, and he had a buyer in Houston lined up. A woman who owned an art gallery, I think. I thought maybe he was, you know, high. But now—” Her gaze shifted to the side just for a moment. “My brother did some art dealing on the side. Maybe Elfego mentioned that. Some of the time, anyway.”

  “Obviously Trey wants the painting back.”

  “Who wouldn’t? It’s worth millions.”

  “And you’re sure your brother took it?”

  “Same as I’m sure Trey killed him.”

  “That’s why he was at your house. To see if you had it.”

  She nodded, sat back in her chair.

  “But you don’t have it.”

  “No, Jack. I don’t have it.”

  “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “You did. But never mind.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  She looked at me steadily. “That’s why I want to go to Oxford. Besides the service for my brother. I think I can find out where Young Henry kept the painting.”

  “You have an idea where?”

  “I do. But I need to see my Aunt Lenora. She and Young Henry were close, especially after our parents passed.”

  “Your mother’s sister?”

  “My father’s.”

  I crossed my arms, trying to absorb it all.

  “Let’s say you find it. Then what?”

  “Then I have it.”

  “If your brother actually had it himself.”

  Her eyes flashed. “I don’t know, Jack. I’m just saying what I know.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “What I think I know.”

  “I’m not saying—”

  “I’m not crazy,” she said, her voice down an octave.

  “It’s okay.” This time it was me reached out to take her hand. Slowly, her face returned to normal.

  “Look, let’s go eat,” I said, consciously changing the subject. “I think better when I’m not hungry. We can talk and go on up to Oxford after that.” I didn’t know what to do with all this and needed some time to let it work out in my head.

  We got our bags and went outside to transfer whatever else she needed from her car over to the Explorer. I folded the rear seats down to make more room. Then I dropped off the card key at the office. She followed me up the interstates that looped the city to the Birmingham airport, and we left her Honda in a covered spot at the Drive-Fly-Park next to Denny’s near the main exit.