The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge

by Malcolm Shuman

  Now I understand the reserve.

  “No,” I say and imagine I can hear him exhale relief.

  “I read a couple of your books,” he says. “They made that TV movie out of one of them, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. Red Widow.”

  “That’s right. I watched most of it. Pretty good.”

  “I didn’t write the screenplay, if that makes a difference.”

  “I wondered.” An awkward silence while the music, a Beethoven piano sonata, plays on in the background. “I always figured you’d come here and write about what happened.”

  “Once I thought I might. But I kept finding other projects.”

  “You have a project now?”

  “Just a personal one.” I tell him about the dreams. “I know the basics but I can’t be sure if all I remember’s accurate. Sometimes I seem to remember different things in the dreams, like it happened some other way.”

  “It was a long time ago, Colin. I try not to think about it.”

  It sounds like a judgment.

  “Do you know where any of the others are?” I ask. “Toby or Stan?”

  “No. I think Toby got into some trouble a few years ago. He was into real estate. I haven’t heard anything about Stan for forty years. To tell the truth, I haven’t tried to find out, and I don’t go to class reunions.”

  “You still play the piano?” I ask.

  “Not as much,” he says. “But I like to listen.”

  “So how’s life?” I try again, desperate to prolong the conversation. “You have children? Grandkids?”

  “A son,” he says. “He’s thirty-two, divorced. Lives in Houston, near his mother.”

  “Oh.” The music finishes. “Look, maybe we could meet for lunch tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to, Colin, but it’s hard during the week. I teach, you know. One of the public high schools. It’s pretty much an all-day business.”

  It’s a polite way of saying no and I can only accept his decision. I tell him goodbye and disconnect.

  Why should I be surprised that he’s not glad to hear from me? What am I but a specter carrying my own contagion?

  That night I walk down to the levee and look at the lights reflected in the water from the new bridge. A thread of music echoes from the Belle, the nearest gambling boat, and a languid breeze stirs the warm air. I find a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves po’ boys and I have one with oysters, drowning the sandwich with a couple of draft beers.

  When I get back my phone is ringing. I lift the receiver and hear Carolyn’s voice.

  “I just wanted to check,” she says.

  “Everything’s fine.” God, I love this woman.

  “Have you talked to anybody?”

  “Just Blaize. I don’t think he wants to get back into it. Can’t say I blame him.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. Work up my courage and drive out there if I have to.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Col and Honey say to tell you hi.” The two grown kids, one in Boulder, the other in Los Angeles.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Just that you were going home to do some research for something you were writing.”

  “I guess that’s close enough.”

  “Colin …” There’s fear in her voice, but all she says is: “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  When we hang up I lie on the bed, wondering if I’ll be able to sleep. I’ve read about sleepwalkers who rise from their dreams to act out problems that bother them during the day. Will I be found tomorrow wandering down the River Road in my skivvies?

  But I am too tired to resist. I turn out the light and I dream.

  CHAPTER THREE

  We stood in the dark at the top of the levee, looking down. The air smelled of fresh grass and cow manure. Overhead, the moon rushed through stringy clouds. At the bottom of the slope, near the fence, a herd of cattle lay in a circle, a couple of them raising their heads as they sensed our presence.

  “See?” Stan said. “He isn’t here.”

  I glanced down at the gravel road, barely discernable in the night. To the left, a quarter-mile away, toward town, was the boxy outline of Bergeron’s store, with no lights showing. The Bergerons had long since gone to bed. To the right, at the end of an oak avenue that began at the River Road, was the inky form of Windsong’s big house, now a decaying ruin. And to the side of the entrance, strategically placed to guard the property, was the cabin of Rufus Sikes. It was dark, too.

  There were no lights at all, until I saw something half a mile away, in the center of one of the fields. At first I thought it was my eyes playing tricks and I nudged Stan.

  “Do you see something over there?”

  “Where?”

  I pointed. The light seemed to blink and then waver.

  “I see it now,” he said. “But why is somebody in the middle of the field at this time of night?”

  “It’s the old graveyard,” I said.

  There was a cemetery on Windsong, where several generations of black laborers were buried. I’d never been there, but I’d had the place pointed out to me when we’d been riding down the River Road looking for a place to shoot tin cans. It was at the end of a dirt road, a quarter of a mile back in the fields, and cloaked by cedars.

  “Jesus, Colin, you’re right. But why?”

  “What if it’s Toby? What if he’s in trouble?”

  “What the hell would he be doing in a graveyard?”

  “I dunno. Why would anybody be poking around down there at midnight?”

  We stood silently for a moment.

  “Look, I say we go down and check it,” I said.

  Stan hesitated. “Maybe it’s something that’s none of our business.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like maybe it’s just some guy knocking off a piece. What we gonna do, go up and shine a light in his eyes?”

  “That’s a flashlight,” I said. “You think they’re outside screwing on the grass? People screw in cars.”

  “I still don’t think it’s Toby.”

  “We’ll never know if we stand here with our thumbs up our asses. And if it turns out it really was Toby and we didn’t do shit, you wanna live with that?”

  “What the hell would we do if it was? Make a noise like a siren?”

  “We got my .22.”

  “That’s what I figured you’d say,” he said miserably.

  I started forward and a second later he followed.

  “Okay, hold up, I’m coming.”

  Later I wondered what would have happened if I’d listened to Stan and not gone.

  It took us twenty minutes of walking along the levee top to get to the place where the little trail led off the main road. In that time the dancing light had vanished and a couple of times Stan lagged, suggesting we turn back, but I’d refused. Now we stood looking down at the rutted track.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The moon ducked under a cloud and the fields lapsed into darkness.

  “Look.” I halted. There was movement below and as we watched, a light-colored car with its headlamps off bounced over the ruts and swung onto the gravel in a spray of dust that rose up like a fog, obscuring vehicle and driver. By the time the dust lifted, the car was barely visible, headed in the direction of town.

  “Did you get a look?” I asked Stan.

  He shook his head. “It may have been a Ford. Or a Chevy. He was in a hurry, whoever it was.”

  I started down, toward the road.

  “Where you going?” he called after me.

  “He was running from something.”

  “Maybe he saw us.”

  “Nah. He took off from the cemetery. He wouldn’t have seen us from there.”

  “You think it was Toby?”

  “Why would he be taking off like that?”

  Stan hesitated
. “Let’s go back.”

  “No. I want to see why he was leaving in such a hurry.”

  “But that’s the graveyard.”

  “You scared of ghosts?”

  “Shit, no. But maybe it’s something else.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged in the darkness.

  I reached the fence and motioned for him to separate the top and middle strands while I ducked under.

  “You’re really going to the cemetery?” he asked.

  “Hell yes. Look, why don’t you stay up here with the rifle and cover me. If the boogie man comes chasing after me, you can knock him off from the top of the levee. How’s that?”

  “You don’t want me to come?”

  “I want you to stay right here, okay? I’ll be fine.”

  “You think you’re Paladin,” he accused.

  “No, I’m the fucking Lone Ranger and you’re Tonto.”

  “Fuck you. Tonto means stupid, Señorita Gloria says.”

  “Like I said …”

  “Asshole.”

  “Just cover me.”

  I hurried across the road, my steps exploding like gunshots on the gravel. When I got to the cemetery track on the other side I stopped, listening.

  But there were no sounds except for a far-away boat horn on the river.

  The way ahead was a black tunnel, between straggly trees that lined the sides of the little trail. A quarter of a mile. Two city blocks. No sweat.

  Paladin had a hand-crafted revolver, though, and a hideout Derringer. I had a flashlight and a friend who was scared of his shadow.

  I walked forward, wondering if I was being stupid; Stan couldn’t see me after a certain point. I turned to look back at the levee, to see if I could make him out at the top, silhouetted against the sky, but I couldn’t be sure.

  What if there really was something at the end of this road—something that was watching even as I walked?

  The trees on each side seemed to lean toward me, narrowing the tunnel as I went. I thought about turning on the flashlight but decided against it: if there really was somebody—or something—at the cemetery it would be able to see me long before I knew it was watching.

  Suddenly a hand grabbed my ankle and I gave a little yell. Then, as I flipped on the light, I realized I’d tripped in a rut.

  So much for surprise.

  I switched off the light, moved to the side of the trail, and waited.

  Silence.

  It was crazy to be scared. There weren’t any werewolves or vampires or bogeymen. Only characters like Rufus Sikes, and there was no reason for him to be down here at this time of night.

  Was there?

  Screw Sikes. I was almost there. A few more yards and I’d be to the graves and I’d shine my light around, probably see a discarded Trojan from the guy in the car, and then I’d walk back and tell Stan what a pussy he was.

  For some reason my heart was beating loud enough to shake my body.

  I sucked in a couple of deep breaths. I could see it ahead now, the cemetery with its pale white stones. Nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary.

  And then I heard it.

  At first I thought it was a dog howling far away but then I realized it was a moan.

  I froze.

  It was coming from the graveyard.

  Oh Christ.

  And suddenly it was rising up in front of me, a white form congealing out of the stones, wavering like ectoplasm against the darkness, long, liquid hair, skull-white face, hands beckoning like talons.

  I ran and didn’t stop until I could see the levee. I looked over my shoulder, half afraid it was coming after me, but there was nothing.

  “Stan?” No answer. “Stan, goddamnit, where are you?” Nothing.

  Jesus, had something gotten him while I was down there? Terror started to shake me like a rag doll. What if I was alone? What if he’d been plucked away and I was to be next?

  I slipped under the barbed wire, tearing my shirt on the top strand, and ran up the side of the grassy slope to the top of the levee.

  “Stan!”

  He was crumpled in a heap just on the river side, his head on his arm, and the rifle across his legs. I began to relax when I saw that his breathing was slow and regular.

  “Stan.”

  His eyes opened and he sat up.

  “I guess I fell asleep.”

  “I guess you did, asshole.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “I …” Sure, a ghost. That would make me the laughingstock of everybody at school.

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t see anything at all.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I awaken drenched in sweat, shouting into the darkness. But I am not lying on the grass. I am on clean sheets, in a scented room. Alone.

  But where? For a second my mind churns. Is there a television interview this morning? Is this Milwaukee or St. Louis? What book will I be asked about today? I replay over and over the dreams that started it all, dreams of interviewers leaning toward me with dripping fangs, asking me about THE BOOK, except that it wasn’t any of the books I’d written, but the one that’s stayed anchored in my mind over the years. The one I’m afraid to write. And they ask me, these vampire interviewers, what it is I really saw that night.

  And I cannot tell them because I don’t know.

  The last TV interview was a dismal failure and my editor, alarmed, called me afterwards to ask what happened. It was a book about a woman who had methodically poisoned four husbands and finally been convicted, thanks to the persistence of the last victim’s son: The book was called Red Widow, because of her favorite clothing color. And in the middle of the interview, which fortunately was with a station in Albuquerque and not Los Angeles or Houston or New Orleans, I’d choked. There were people who’d been on the levee that night, I’d blurted, who should have seen.

  The interviewer, a black-haired, attractive young woman named Inez, blinked, because there was no levee in the book, but since interviewers seldom read the books anyway, she figured it was something that wasn’t in the blurb she’d skimmed before air time, and she asked if I’d talked to any of them, and I only looked blank.

  Time ran out before things could get any worse, but a bookstore owner called my editor, and I got a call that evening in the hotel.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Just tired,” I mumbled. “This makes ten cities in ten days. I get confused.”

  “There’re two more cities on the tour. Can you handle it?”

  “Yeah, Myra, sure.”

  “Colin, you sound tired. I think you need a rest.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I must have snapped at her because the next morning, before leaving for the airport, I got a call from my agent, a tall, tweedy man who got out of editing when he realized he could make more money representing writers than publishing them.

  “They’re concerned,” Gordon Gayle said in his cultured Boston voice. “Maybe you’ve been working too hard. Maybe we ought to cancel on the last two cities.”

  “I can manage.”

  “Look, Colin, if it’s too much of a strain it isn’t worth it. Is there something we need to talk about? Something that’s bothering you?”

  “I’m fine, Gordon. How many times do I have to say it? F-I-N-E.”

  “Then why did you refuse Baton Rouge as a tour stop? This was supposed to be your big chance, but you wouldn’t go to your own home town.”

  “That’s personal.”

  “Colin, nothing’s personal if it’s going to give you a nervous breakdown. Look, I talked to Carolyn before I called you.”

  “Damn it, Gordon, you had no right.”

  “She says you’ve had some problems lately. She’s concerned, as are we all.”

  I suddenly felt naked, betrayed. Would Carolyn really have told him about the dreams, the long walks at night, the blank stares as if I’d gone into another dimension?

  And, of course, because sh
e loved me, she would have.

  All the energy suddenly leaked out of me. “What do you want me to do, Gordon?”

  “I want you to talk things over with someone. Get some of the heat off. Nothing long-term. Writing’s a gut-wrenching process. You open a vein and bleed and if you’re lucky a publisher wants your blood type. But there’s no security. Look, Colin, you’re one of the saner writers I handle. So humor me and let’s take care of this, nip it in the bud, and then you can get back to work, ay?”

  So I saw a psychologist, and he asked me about my parents (mother dead in 1952 of a brain hemorrhage, father dead of a heart attack in 1970, at the age of 53). The psychologist made a big thing over the fact that I’d outlived both my parents and was an only child. Then I told him about the execution and he began to write fast on the pad.

  The condemned man was named Delmos Bridges and he’d been convicted of murdering two little boys.

  The first boy had been taken from a playground in Austin, Texas, the second, months later, from a summer day camp in the same city. There had been no clues until one of the counselors at the day camp remembered a white van parked by the curb. The bodies of both boys were later found in woods a few miles from where they’d been abducted.

  A year later, in Norman, Oklahoma, a man in a white van tried to kidnap another boy from a bus stop, but onlookers rushed to the child’s aid and one of them got a partial plate number. The number led to an unemployed house painter named Delmos Bridges.

  At first he denied everything, but physical evidence soon linked him to the two murders. Faced with the DNA and fibers from his van on the victims’ bodies, Delmos Bridges confessed his crimes, but alluded to others that would never be solved without his help.

  Convicted in Texas and sentenced to death, for the next two years he led lawmen on a six-state goose chase that promised much and delivered disappointingly little. There were other victims, he swore, but when the burial places were searched, no bodies turned up. Sometimes there were missing children in those areas who fit the descriptions of the children he claimed to have killed, but without bodies there was little to be done. In the one instance where a body was found, it was of an older woman, not a ten-year-old boy. She had been hit on the head by a heavy object, while he claimed that he had strangled the boy. Faced with the disparities, he revised his story, claiming he’d kidnapped both mother and child and that the boy had yet to be found.