The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Am I? Come with me, then.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight. Unless you’re just a sack of bullshit on legs.”

  “What time?”

  “Make it one-thirty. I’ll drive down your street, real slow. If you ain’t outside waiting I’ll know you’re just a bullshitting asshole.”

  “Don’t worry, you cunt, I’ll be there.”

  And that’s how it happened, something I’d never planned, but that just jumped out. Under any other circumstances I’d never have thought of taking my dad’s car. But I kept thinking about Stan, sitting on that bluff, and the vacant look on his face, like he only wanted a way out. And if I didn’t do something, no matter how futile, not only would I have to live with it for the rest of my life, but I’d have to put up with Toby’s bullshit.

  That night it was hot when I turned in. I lay in bed with the windows open and the table fan purring on the bookcase, five feet away, alternately washing me with currents of warm air. From the next room came the thrum of the window air conditioner, which my father had purchased last year, and I knew that with its noise he’d never hear me tiptoeing out down the hall or the sound of the car engine starting.

  It was stupid, I told myself, and I lay on the sheets, sweating, for a long time. I could just close my eyes, forget about it, and let events take their course.

  And listen to Toby’s taunts tomorrow.

  Did I really care what he thought or said? Wasn’t Stan what it was about? Wasn’t he my friend? And if I hadn’t run away that night, wasn’t there a chance she would have spoken aloud the name of the real killer before she died?

  I slipped on my clothes and, shoes in hand, went to the brass hook where my father kept the keys.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Any hope that Toby wouldn’t be there was dashed when I eased down his street and saw a figure disengage itself from the shadow of the crepe myrtle on his front lawn. He slid into the car quickly for all his girth, rolled down the window and lit up a cigarette.

  “I thought you wouldn’t show up,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I thought some of Blaize might of rubbed off on you.”

  “What’s this with Blaize? He’s weak, okay, ‘cause he has asthma. That isn’t his fault.”

  “He’s a fairy.”

  “Shove it.”

  “Then why isn’t he with us?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “Because you know he’s a fairy.”

  “Because I don’t think he could get out of his place as easy as we can.”

  “That’s the fucking-A truth, with that old lady of his. She’s a loon case.”

  “That something else your old man told you?”

  “Didn’t have to—Just look at her, hovering over poor little boy Blaize, scared to death he’s going to catch cold or the clap or something. That’s what makes fairies.”

  “Who says?”

  “Freud says.”

  “Fuck him.”

  Toby guffawed. “So what is it you expect us to find tonight?”

  “Maybe nothing. But I figure if there’s the slightest chance, we owe it to Stan.”

  “Yeah, well, what if it only confirms his old man’s guilty?”

  I hadn’t thought about that one. “Well, what would that be? He sure as hell didn’t drop his wallet.”

  “A rubber, dickless. They can get a blood type from the cum in a rubber.”

  “We’ll take the chance.”

  “Yeah. Well, if it is a rubber, I’ll let you handle it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Suppose it’s something that points to somebody else,” Toby said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

  “That’s what we want.”

  “But what if it points to somebody you don’t want it to?”

  “Like who?”

  “Well, like Stan. I mean, what if he knew about his old man and Gloria and he got pissed at her for ruining the family?”

  “Stan was with me, remember?”

  “But you had to sleep. He could have gotten up when you guys were sleeping and gone down there.”

  “But we saw the car …”

  “You saw a car. Who the fuck knows if that car had anything to do with the killing? That could’ve been somebody out screwing his girlfriend. The killing could have happened an hour later.”

  “It didn’t, though,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  For a second the admission of what I’d seen hovered on my tongue, but I ended up just shaking my head.

  “It just didn’t. There’s no way Stan would have known to get up in the middle of the night and go down there and just happen to catch his dad and Gloria Santana.”

  “Unless he knew beforehand. Unless it was all planned.”

  “That’s a crock of shit.”

  “Okay.” He flipped his glowing butt through the window. The campus was quiet as we crossed Nicholson and passed the looming baseball stadium. The levee was just ahead now, a low, black screen rising from the ground.

  “Then maybe you did it,” Toby said.

  “You fucker. Maybe you did it. You’re the one who left us out there. You weren’t there all night.”

  Toby croaked out a laugh.

  “I got a alibi, dickhead. I was with Michelle.”

  I felt something hit me in the belly. “Michelle Bergeron?”

  “You know any other Michelle?”

  “You’re really a lying sack of crap.”

  “She gives a blow job like a vacuum cleaner. And her tits …”

  “Jesus, you’re a liar.”

  But Toby just chuckled. “You ought to try her sometime. If you can keep it up long enough.”

  We came to the gravel and I headed south.

  “Or it could’ve been Stan’s brother or his old lady,” Toby said. “The doc could be protecting them.”

  “If you’re so sure one of them did it, why the hell did you even come with me?”

  “What the hell else do I have to do?”

  We passed Bergeron’s darkened store. The idea of Michelle Bergeron with a slob like Toby was ridiculous, but down deep there was a seed of doubt. Windsong was quiet, too, no lights or shrieks, nor was there any light at the Sikes place, though this time his pickup was in the front yard, next to the Belair on blocks.

  We came to the cemetery road and I stopped.

  “Well?” Toby asked. “Aren’t you going to drive in?”

  I was already thinking about how I could turn around quickly if I had to.

  “I don’t want to drive over any evidence.”

  “Shit, the cops have already gone up and down this road a couple hundred times.”

  He was right, of course, and there should be space at the cemetery to turn around.

  I cut the headlights, leaving only the dimmers on, and we bounced slowly over the ruts, drawing ever closer to the spot where a dying woman had reached out, calling for my help.

  “What’s wrong?” Toby asked. “This ain’t the graveyard, it’s up there.”

  “I know where it is,” I snapped. A few seconds later we came into a little clearing, peopled by luminous tombstones.

  I started to turn around so I could leave in a hurry if I had to, but Toby was already getting out. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He flicked on his cigarette lighter and I gave up, sliding the gearshift lever into park and leaving the engine running. I picked up my flashlight and opened my door, my feet crushing the dry grass. Around us, fireflies blinked like winking eyes and in the ditch by the little road frogs croaked.

  “Here’s where it happened,” Toby said, the flickering flame of his lighter giving his face an evil cast. “The cops figure she got out first and he got out after her. They don’t know if they’d screwed already or not, but they were standing right about where you are now and they started to argue.”

  “You said she was raped.”

  “They thought she was, but they fuc
ked up, okay? Now shut up and listen: she tried to run away and he grabbed her. He pulled out a pocket knife, probably brought it just for this, and he cut her right in the guts.”

  I started to tremble, felt my gorge rising.

  “But that didn’t kill her right off. She spurted blood all over him and then she turned around to run. He caught up with her and stabbed her in the back, six or eight times.”

  “Toby, for God’s sake …”

  “She went down to her knees and he grabbed her head then and cut her under the chin.”

  Amid the nausea a sudden thought came to me.

  “Does that mean she couldn’t have said anything after that?”

  “I dunno. Why?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Well, anyhow, she fell down, and then he rolled her over. They figure she was still alive, because there were cuts on her arms, like she was trying to protect herself.”

  It was as real as if I was seeing it happen, and the terrible thing was that the figure I saw bending over her really was Dr. Benson Chandler.

  “Then he cut off her tits.”

  “What?”

  “He cut off her tits. They found ’em in the grass.”

  “She had to be dead by then,” I said. Maybe what I’d seen hadn’t been the dying woman after all. Maybe it had been a figment of my imagination …

  “He thought she was. He left, they figure. But she got up somehow and staggered a few feet down the road. That’s where they found her.”

  My knees started to give out and I reached out to steady myself against a nearby cedar tree.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I managed, trying to shove the apparition from my mind. I flipped on my flashlight and started to walk between the gravestones. Some were plain white slabs of concrete with no marking at all, and others had inscriptions that had been made while the cement was still wet. But most of the graves were unmarked, simple depressions in the ground whose wooden markers had long since rotted.

  If there’d ever been anything here, the police had already found it, because the ground was bare of foreign objects, except for a couple of cigarette butts that could have been dropped by the detectives.

  “Here’s one died in 1915,” Toby said. “That was the year my old man was born.”

  “Aren’t you going to help?”

  “Help what? I don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking for.”

  I moved away from the graves and onto the hard-packed dirt road, but Toby was right: the cop cars had obliterated anything that might have been here.

  I went back to the cemetery and shined my light up at the tree fringe.

  “What do you expect to find out there?” Toby asked, sitting down on one of the cement slabs.

  “What if she threw something, like maybe she tore off his watch, or a ring or …”

  “Sure.”

  But there were no glimmers in the trees and I flicked off the beam. What did that leave? I turned the light back on and by accident it hit the back fence, where a cluster of blackberry vines screened the cemetery from the adjacent pasture.

  I walked over and shined the light in the thicket.

  “You think they came out here to pick berries?” Toby asked.

  “I think she could’ve run away and been stopped at the fence, couldn’t she?” I asked.

  “I told you how she was killed. It was over there, by your car.”

  “But you weren’t here. Neither were the cops.”

  “They could tell by the blood on the grass.”

  “And they don’t ever make mistakes.”

  He shrugged. “Just hurry up. It’s getting cold out here.”

  I walked the fence line, knowing it was a waste of time, but knowing I had to do it.

  And when I reached the corner post, the light hit something deep in the shadows of the thicket, sending a single gleam back at me.

  I reached in slowly, knowing that snakes loved blackberry thickets, and that in all probability all I was going to find for my efforts would be a piece of tinfoil from chewing gum.

  My fingers touched something hard, cold, closed around it.

  I carefully drew the object out, ignoring the thorns.

  I shined the light down on it.

  It was a single gold earring with a dangling, five pointed star.

  “Jesus,” I said to myself.

  “What?” Toby hoisted himself to his feet and lumbered over. I showed him the object.

  “You found that in there?” he asked.

  “Yeah. You think we’re wasting our time now?”

  “It could be anybody’s. Some college girl’s. Some nigger woman who came back here to clean the graves.”

  “I think it was hers,” I said. “I think he tore it off her when they were struggling and it got thrown into the bushes.”

  “You gonna turn it in as evidence, then?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, like you say, it doesn’t prove anything. Especially if it was hers.”

  “You ever see her wearing it?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t in her class. But Blaize was. I’ll show it to him. He may remember.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Toby said, disgusted. “Now you ready to go?”

  I shook my head, clutching the earring in one hand.

  “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The next day I showed the earring to Blaize and the cops came looking for me.

  I thought it was funny that Toby didn’t say anything about wanting to be there when I showed Blaize. He just left the car as quickly as he could and vanished back into the shadows of his front yard, heading, no doubt, for his bedroom window. I went home, replaced the keys on the hook in the breakfast room, and lay down in my underwear, trying to will myself to sleep. But the same scenario kept running through my mind.

  He was chasing her with the knife, they were struggling, she twisted, the knife slashed across her neck, she lurched out of his grip and he reached out for her and somehow caught her earring instead. It ripped loose, which must have hurt, since it was for a pierced ear. He threw the earring away and ran after her and the rest was probably the way Toby had described it.

  Had she been able to scream or had her vocal cords been severed? Could she have told me his name if I hadn’t acted the coward that night and run?

  I drifted off some time around six, and woke up moments later to hear my father moving around the house, preparing to head out for the office. Half an hour later, when I heard the car motor start, I dressed, gobbled a bowl of raisin bran, and, bleary-eyed, stuck the earring deep into my pocket and headed for Blaize’s apartment.

  His mother greeted me at the door in her bathrobe.

  “It’s a little early, isn’t it, Colin? Blaize is still asleep.”

  “I’m sorry.” It hadn’t occurred to me that at eight on a Friday morning people might still be in bed.

  “That’s perfectly all right. He just had a little episode last night. It’s especially bad at this time of year, with the pollens.”

  I nodded, suddenly uncomfortable in her presence. Judging from her sunken cheeks, the black smudges under her eyes and the pallor of her complexion sans makeup, the night had been a hard one for both of them. The image clashed with the one I’d always had of Blanche St. Martin, the woman who was in total control.

  “What if I have him call you when he wakes up? Then, if he’s feeling all right, maybe you can get together and play later on.”

  Play, as if we were seven-year-olds.

  I wandered back to my house, took the earring out of my pocket and stared at it.

  Maybe Toby was right and it had nothing at all to do with the crime. I remembered the Sherlock Holmes stories I’d read and tried to think of how the great detective would approach the situation. Of course, he’d know the kind of metal the earring was made of and what shops sold it, and then he’d probably deduce something about the person who wore it from the style, itself.

 
But since it was the dead woman’s, there seemed little to be gained from that angle: her several facets were already becoming known.

  It even occurred to me that I didn’t know whether it was real gold or gold plate. Probably the latter, of course, because nothing was real gold any more, but weren’t there grades of purity? There was 14 karat, which was what everybody talked about, and then there was the cheap, painted stuff you got at Woolworth’s. And I didn’t have the expertise to tell the difference.

  I put the object in the little tin box with a slot in the top where I saved my pennies and wished I’d roused myself to ask for the car. Without it, I was stuck.

  I was still staring, red-eyed, at the little coin bank when I heard a car stop outside and a door slammed. I roused myself and went to the front door.

  Blaize was coming up the sidewalk and I saw his mother waiting behind the wheel of the yellow Olds.

  I opened the door and she waved.

  I waved back.

  “Mom said you came over a little while ago,” he said.

  His mother was already motioning for me to approach the car.

  She leaned across the seat toward the still open door.

  “Colin, when I told Blaize you’d come by he absolutely insisted that I bring him over. I certainly hope you aren’t planning anything strenuous.”

  I noticed she was made up now, the pale cheeks heavily rouged and the smudges under her eyes gone. She’d even festooned herself with jewelry and I wondered where she was heading.

  “I was just going to hang around here and watch TV,” I said.

  “That’s fine. I’ll rely on you. Blaize, you remember you have piano practice at three. Here, let me give you some money in case you decide to go down to the drugstore for a hotdog.”

  I watched him take the money and shove it quickly into his pocket. He hurried into the house and closed the door after us. The car pulled off and he gave a little shrug.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked.

  He looked up, surprised. “Fine. Oh, she told you …”

  My turn to shrug. “She just said you had a little episode, she called it.”

  “God damn it,” he said, his face red. “Why can’t she leave me alone? I may have asthma, but I’m not dying.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It isn’t your fault.”