Phantom Nights

by John Farris

  Good or bad, Jim Giles dutifully reported the news as it happened. But it was up to him to make sure his next report would put all of Mr. Howard's worries to rest.

  Matter of time and place, Giles reflected, putting down the funny papers to stare at a damned boat-tailed bird taking a shit on the hood of his truck. He was a careful but decisive man. A kid who escaped the firebombing of a tinderbox house was worthy of some respect. But another opportunity would present itself. Thereafter the boy would be dead, and there would be no way to trace his death back to Jim Giles, the Senator-elect's man.

  He tapped his horn, but the insolent bird refused to fly away. Another little thing not going right today. In another, more private place he would have taken down the double-barreled shotgun from the rack behind him and blown the bird into a bloody wad of feathers.

  Giles spat brown juice into the Hopalong Cassidy glass and felt his pulse rate picking up. He had little or no tolerance for things that made him angry.

  After deciding on and charging a pair of dress-up white sandals in the women's department of Durikel's, Francie Swift located Alex one aisle over wearing the new shirt and moccasins he'd bought and also charged, to Bobby's account. He was looking raptly at an embroidered peasant blouse and denim skirt ensemble on a store dummy.

  Francie came up behind him and said kiddingly, "Oh, you remembered my birthday's in two weeks."

  He looked around at her, flustered.

  "Bet I'd look good in that, if they had my size."

  Alex smiled, reddening, and shrugged.

  "I'm not having a party this year, just the family and maybe . . . one other person I decide to invite. Maybe we'll do a sit-down dinner. How does that sound, Alex?"

  He wasn't sure if he was the one being invited to dinner.

  Francie handed him her shopping bag to carry and made her intentions clear about the birthday by slipping an arm inside his.

  "I'm a size two," she said. "Want to have lunch? My treat today."

  On the way to Leland Howard's farm in the northeast corner of the county, Bobby said to Ramses Valjean, "Was Mally much of a churchgoer?"

  "She probably was. Through no influence of mine, of course."

  "Being a nonbeliever yourself."

  Ramses's face was tired and perspiring. The air coming in through partly rolled-down windows was hot enough to brew tea. Clouds on the horizon looked flat as chalk lines. Trees mobbed the curving road, fields beyond, cotton in bursting rows, the brilliant green of soybeans. A tractor with a bush hog attached was cleaning out an irrigation ditch. They passed a slow pulpwood truck, its radio blaring Hank Williams, ghostly in the waveband. Long Gone Lonesome Blues. They drove by barns with sides of faded paint, the icons of a countryman's homely needs: Prince Albert, Martha White, Aunt Jemima. Two radios in the Packard, for business, for amusement. Sun flickered across the divided windshield like a movie yet to be imagined.

  "God's off the map, but you got to have something to hold onto."

  "Well, that's right," Ramses said indifferently. His eyes had been closed most of the way.

  "What do you believe in then?"

  Ramses stirred as if he had been made uncomfortable, and Bobby thought he was annoyed; but then Ramses smiled.

  "I believe in the sanctity of my profession. I believe in the careworn human heart, a lovely fate for the deserving, the vastness of the human soul, and long shots at Hialeah that pay twenty to one. I believe that brown eyes mean more trouble than blue, that love is a Frankenstein of stitched-together implausible parts. I believe in the perfection of the skies, the divinity of Mr. William Shakespeare, the pleasures of the ego, and long train journeys with Gypsy women who give me sponge baths and nip at my testicles like moths on a woolen sleeve."

  Bobby said with a perplexed grin, "Collar on that work shirt I borrowed for you too tight around the neck, Ramses?"

  "Naw suh marse Bobby. But these heah overalls sho' be snug in the crotch."

  "Best I could do on short notice. Rhoda's husband is about four inches shy of your height. Remember to keep that old fedora pulled down on your head, in case anybody up here takes a second look at you. Harlem hair don't go with overalls."

  "The art of blending in is part of my heritage," Ramses said in his normal voice. "Do we have much farther to go?"

  "We're looking for Jacobs' Gin Road. Used to come up this way before the war with my daddy, shoot quail in Edgar Moody's pasture on those nice crisp days before Thanksgiving."

  "Got along with him pretty well, did you?"

  "Yeah."

  "You asked me a question."

  "Okay, your turn."

  "What is the best thing your father ever taught you?"

  "Make room in your life for the people who love you."

  "Second-best?"

  "If you screw up, own up."

  "He sounds as if he was a good man. What kind of sheriff did he make?"

  "Except he liked the bottle too much, he never screwed up."

  "Neither will you."

  "When Leland Howard comes back to Evening Shade, he'll have a sledgehammer with him."

  "Knowing what to expect, that may be half the battle."

  "I hope so."

  "The other half is, you're willing to make the fight."

  A familiar red roadster was parked at a tilt off Jacobs' Gin Road and the weedy, rutted farm road to Leland Howard's place. Eddie Paradise Galphin was leaning against a back fender of his car. In anticipation of enhanced status in his chosen profession, he had treated himself to a cigar. Bobby slowed before making the turn and flashed the fingers of his right hand three times at Eddie, who touched the brim of his raffish straw boater in acknowledgment. Fifteen minutes.

  Leland Howard's tillable acreage was lease-farmed by an old boy named Claude T. Long with the help of his middle-aged halfwit son, nicknamed Bird Dog because his face was spotty with birthmarks ranging in size from a dime to a half-dollar. Claude was a deadeye at turkey shoots, his major claim to local fame. Also he had a grandniece who was married to one-half of the blackface comedy act Jamup and Honey, who were featured on the Grand Ole Opry; a touch of show-business royalty in the family.

  Claude and Bird Dog were tinkering with the engine of an old John Deere cultivator in front of the barn. Claude looked around when Bobby and Ramses got out of the Packard wagon, said to his son, "Give that wrench 'nother half turn there and hold on 'til I say quit." He was a tall, emaciated man with one short leg who walked as if he were forever going sideways on a steep hill. "Lord God. Bobby Gambier." Claude took off a salt-streaky brown felt hat and waved at some flies that had tagged along after him. The truth was, he had an odor that would attract vultures if he stopped moving long enough. "Reckon ain't laid eyes on you since the Hulsey boys got into their shootin' match over that fly-by-night wife of Elroy's. Heard Fuzzy was let go couple months back?"

  "Fuzz drives a big rig for P.I.E. out of Little Rock now."

  "Better job than ol' Elroy's ever likely to git, nose shot off thataway. But he never were a handsome boy. Brings you up our way?"

  "Well, sir, come to look at those dogs of Mr. Leland Howard's I've heard about."

  "Them Catahoolers?" Ramses already was drifting toward the kennel fence line, where the hounds had gathered at the arrival of the station wagon. One was whining, the other two were silent but alert. Their eyes had a stunning baleful brilliance in the lengthening angular shadow from the barn behind them.

  "Looking for a new dog of my own. Old Rusty finally lived up to his name, couldn't drag himself around anymore."

  "Let's see now, your pap, always partial to retrievers, wasn't he?"

  "We always had a couple around."

  "Now if you're lookin' for a good all-purpose gun dog, Lovett Moody's German shorthair bitch just throwed a litter over to his place in Hapsworth. Get me wrong, Catahoolers is fine strong-lookin' animals if you don't mind the wolf-dog eyes. Come across one of them loose in the nighttime you'll crap your britches. But they ain't good
for much except trackin' hogs. Look how they astandin' there watchin' us. That's the killer bred in 'em. Takes a special breed to go after hogs, if you liken the sport."

  "Time to time I do."

  "They ain't pets, no sir, like a sweet-natured gun dog can be when he ain't workin'. I don't go near them three 'cept to feed and water 'em. Better tell your nigger not to put his fingers 'tween the links of that fence war neither."

  "Ramses, the man said not to get too close."

  "Yassuh, I heerd."

  "Otherwise," Claude said, "you go right ahead, look 'em over all you please, Bobby."

  "Thanks, Claude. Didn't mean to take you away from your chores. Boy doing all right?"

  "Well, he's comp'ny since the woman done gone home to Jesus. And he don't wonder 'bout things too hard. Pitches himself a little fit now and then 'cause he can't recall whur she is."

  Bobby drifted up to Ramses as Claude limped back to the John Deere cultivator. Ramses was almost within arm's reach of the chain-link fence and the grouped watchful dogs, who seemed to be grinning at him. A peculiarity of the breed. Bobby had read up on Catahoulas in the library after Mally's funeral.

  "What do you see so far?"

  "The kennel run was hosed down recently. The dogs too, I think. But the middle one still has some matted tufts on her chest that could be blood. If these are the dogs, then there ought to be traces of blood remaining between their toes. You would want to anesthetize them to do a thorough examination."

  "What else are we looking for?"

  "Lower right canine tooth, broken off near the gum line."

  "That would cinch it."

  "Yes."

  Bobby walked up to the fence and kicked it a couple of times. One of the Catahoulas backed off soundlessly, but the others looked at him with lordly disdain. Bobby shook his head.

  "Okay, I'm going in there."

  "What? These dogs are not friendly."

  "I want to see some snarls. Get them to open their mouths so I can count teeth."

  "All three may attack you without warning if you set foot in there."

  "If they get a notion I'm afraid of them. I've been around dogs all my life; I know how to handle them."

  "Bobby—"

  "If I'm wrong, back me up with the cattle prod I gave you in the car before they can tear an arm off."

  Bobby walked to the gate at the end of the sixty-foot kennel run. Two of the dogs looked at him; the other continued to watch Ramses. Bobby drew a breath and opened the gate, walked in. Now he had all of the hounds' attention. He whistled sharply. Over by the cultivator, Claude Long looked around. Bobby hunkered down, whistling more softly, two repetitive notes. The dogs came just as softly in his direction, and Ramses moved along the fence with them, a hand on the cattle prod in one deep pocket of his overalls. Bobby smiled, hands relaxed and visible between his knees.

  One of the leopard dogs, darker than the others and with only one marbled eye, took the lead but stayed six feet or so away from him, on the prowl, sniffing. Bobby stayed aware of her movements but didn't turn his head. Tall dogs, Bobby crouched, they were all about eye level with him. The bitch with mismatched eyes came to within a foot of his left shoulder, paused. The other dogs stopped too. They were grinning, but not enough for him to get a look at a full set of teeth.

  The bitch on his left put her nose against his forearm, a brief touch, then circled him and rejoined her sisters. Bobby still didn't move.

  One by one the dogs lay down, tongues out in the heat, close enough so that Bobby could smell their breaths.

  Then the bitch with one marbled eye yawned, and he saw the broken canine tooth.

  Bobby got up slowly, moved back, found the gate, and eased himself outside. Over by the cultivator, Claude Long slapped a thigh with his felt hat, a salute of sorts, and went back to work.

  "What now?" Ramses said.

  "Dogs will be impounded. If Mally's blood is on any of them, we'll know in three days."

  "Can you get a warrant to search the house?"

  "I wouldn't even try. Waddy Winship will give me that look over the edges of his glasses and say, 'But, Bobby, there's no probable cause. Suppose Leland did have a colored woman up there with him for a good time last Satiddy night? And even that you don't know for a fact. I can think of many reasons why Mally Shaw could've been around that neck of the woods and run afoul of his huntin' dogs. A tragic accident, to be sure, but where is there evidence of a crime?'"

  "There's evidence that she was moved to cover up the fact his dogs killed her. That is a felony; you said so yourself."

  "Candy wrappers and a boot print and pubic hair is what we've got to prove a connection between them. Try getting the grand jury to even consider an indictment. Ramses, it's Leland Howard we're talking about. He has powerful support, relationships, endorsements from the political party that owns the State of Tennessee, owns my job and my personal butt besides."

  "I didn't think you were afraid anymore."

  "Fear's got nothing to do with it. Politics is a deck of playing cards, Ramses. It's got aces and kings and it's got the deuces like me; we get a little dog-eared or unlucky and we're out of the deal. An hour after I show up in Waddy's court looking for a search warrant, the phone calls will have been made and I'll be suspended from my job."

  "You're saying—"

  "I am saying that some subtlety is required here if I am to be effective and allowed to continue to do what I'm good at."

  They looked up the road at the arrival of Eddie Paradise Galphin's red roadster.

  "So is that your idea of subtlety?" Ramses said with a slow smile.

  "Maybe," Bobby said, now willing to smile himself.

  The double door entrance to the depot at Cole's Crossing was no longer boarded up as it had been for many years. Alex saw that as soon as he left the road and got off his bicycle, stood seriously winded between the rails until he could catch his breath. Then, holding the bike by one handlebar, he bumped it over the crossties toward one end of the long station platform. The steel-mesh grills were missing from the wide windows on either side of the entrance; dozens of shard panes had been replaced with sparkling new glass, not a trace of soot on them.

  The depot sported a new paint job too, green apple shade with plentiful gray trim, all of it glistening as if the paint hadn't completely dried.

  Yet there wasn't a light anywhere except for the red filters on the lantern that the stationmaster was swinging casually back and forth as he watched Alex approach with his bike. He was a lanky man with a stuck-out Adam's apple and a grin that looked to be all false teeth. He wore his short-billed cap well back on the domed crown of his head.

  "Hello!" the stationmaster said. "Here to see Mally?"

  Alex left his bike across the track because he knew from previous visits that he wouldn't be able to push it through, up two steps from track level. He could easily pass from moonlight and creature-sounds and the heady swelter of a country summer night to the strange firmament, essentially a void, across the track, but his bike couldn't go with him.

  Alex chose not to go either, not just yet. He had never seen the stationmaster before. His being there wasn't necessarily a good thing.

  "It's all right, come on up," the stationmaster urged him, glancing over his shoulder at the restored depot. "How do you like what we've done to the old place? A lot more cheerful, hey? Not such a dump anymore."

  Alex made a job of clearing his dry throat. But as long as he remained where he was, on his side of the track, he knew he couldn't speak. On their side—he nodded guardedly as the stationmaster looked around at him again with that unvarying cheeky grin. The red light continued to scythe through inky darkness.

  "Mally will be along. Meantime aren't you just a little curious? Don't you want to have a peek inside? Everything's how it was, the way you remember. I'll just throw a few lights on to help you find your way."

  Alex shook his head. The stationmaster eyed him indulgently.

  "Nothing to
be afraid of, Alex. Only a few new friends waiting. Young people like yourself, eager to get to know you." He stepped to the platform's edge and swung the lantern out over the track like a lure. The light flushed Alex's face. "What do you say, bud? Join us."

  Alex didn't like the light; it came at him like a headache ball. At its glowing periphery with each long swing he saw figures ill-defined, long faces sorrowful but also threatening. He looked away and closed his eyes, shutting out of his mind everything but Mally's benign image.

  When he looked up again, the depot was dilapidated and as shack-ugly as ever. The stationmaster was gone. Mally stood in his place, wearing the peasant blouse and denim skirt he had picked out for her at Dunkel's Department Store that afternoon. She didn't have a lantern with her. Self-illumined as always by the faint light covering her revealed skin surfaces, a wet, birthing glow.

  "Alex, I told you," she said glumly. "You need to stay away from here. They're beginning to come through to you."

  He was so happy to see her that he jumped boldly across both rails without looking first. Never a good idea. There were trains all the time in this starless place of Mally's that didn't announce their presence until they were almost on you. Moving fast like the snap of a whip but without much sound; that is if they didn't intend stopping at Cole's Crossing to pick up. No one got off there, of course.

  "But I wanted to see you," Alex said, bounding up the steps to platform level. "And they're always here anyway, inside. Looking out. Less than shadows. Not scary except for the eyes sometimes. They're eyes with nothing to tell you." Still happy, moving around her as she followed him with her own eyes, Alex wallowing in the luxury of language, slinging words about until he got her to smile at last.

  "You have a lot to learn. What happened to your hand?"

  "They burned your house down last night while I was there looking for the key."