Highway 61 Resurfaced (v5)

by Bill Fitzhugh

  What had happened was this: Lynch honestly thought he’d sold Crail on the lawsuit idea. He said they should go down to the courthouse immediately to file the papers, figuring once they got outside he could make a run for it. Though he knew his sore leg would slow him a bit, he was confident he could outrun anybody with a knee the size and color of Crail’s. Crail, for his part, played along until they got to the parking lot, where he opened his trunk, put the tools in, then turned to Jeremy with his hand extended and said, “Now gimme that screwdriver you palmed.”

  Lynch, whose skills at prevarication were surprisingly unpolished for an attorney, tried to back away as he said, “Screwdriver? I don’t know what—” There followed a brief scuffle during which Crail, hopping around on his one good leg, somehow managed to disarm his limping lawyer and stuff him in the trunk of his car, telling him they’d file the papers later. Then Crail stunned him with a right jab, closed the lid, and hit the road.

  Highway 49 took them from the flat Jackson prairies through the rolling, kudzu-covered loess hills that loomed over the southeastern edge of the Delta. Along the way Crail cranked up the stereo, listening to a classic rocker out of Jackson. Foreigner, Heart, Journey, a dull mix even by the lowered standards of today’s rock radio. The two huge speakers mounted in the rear dash of the car were pounding the tedious power chords and threatening to drive Lynch either crazy or deaf. He knew he could reach up and punch holes in the speakers from where he was, but he figured that would just result in another beating, so he stuck his fingers in his ears and prayed for the signal to fade.

  Fortunately, just as they crossed into Yazoo County, the music stopped. Lynch pulled his fingers from his ears and could hear beeps as Crail punched a number into his cell phone. After a moment he heard him say, “Hey, Mama, it’s me. How you feelin’? Uh-huh, yeah. Well, what’d the doctor say? Ohhh. Are you sure you paid it? You call the customer-service number? Well, you just have to stay on hold till somebody answers. Yeah, I know. It takes ’em a long time.” Crail listened for a moment before saying, “Oh, I’m doin’ all right. My knee’s a little sore, but I, uhhh, I got me a lawyer says he thinks we might be able to sue somebody about that. Make a little money finally. Yeah, me too, Mama. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  Crail knew better, of course. There would be no lawsuit. He was just trying to give her some hope here at the end. She’d been born poor and had worked hard her whole life, trying to give him a better chance than she’d had. The setbacks seemed to come into her life by the dozens, but she’d endured, teaching her son the value of persistence. And with that they’d managed to get the football scholarship and what seemed to be a guarantee to a better life. But then his knee blew out, ending what had been his one good chance. She didn’t care what the loss meant to her, which was plenty, but she was so disappointed for him that it would break your heart. And now Crail just wanted her to believe that things were going to work out okay.

  They made small talk for a minute before he said, “Well, all right, Mama. You take care. I’ll come see you soon as I can. I love you too.”

  As soon as Crail ended the call, Lynch yelled from the trunk, “Hey, listen, I’ve sued a bunch of those HMOs and insurance companies, and based on what I just heard? It sounds like we got a good case. Why don’t you pull over? I can make a few calls and get the ball rolling on that,” he said. “I tell you what. I’ll even waive my usual retainer.” He paused, but there was no response. “Hey, you listening?”

  Crail didn’t say anything because he’d just noticed something out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t anything specific, just some combination of light and motion, coming toward his head, and fast. He jerked the steering wheel reflexively, pinballing Lynch to the trunk’s wall and knocking him out. Crail managed to keep the car on the road, but just barely. He looked around wild-eyed, trying to see what had caused his reaction, but there was nothingto be seen. It turned out that hallucinations were just another of the many side effects of the sulfamethoxazole.

  As they came into Yazoo City at the top of Broadway Street, Crail’s cell phone rang. He recognized the number on the display. He said, “Hey, Cuffie, honey. Listen, those antibiotics you gave me don’t seem to be—”

  “Crail, baby, guess what! Guess what!” Her voice pitched high and fast.

  He sure hoped she wasn’t pregnant. He said, “I dunno, uhhhh.”

  She blurted, “You’ll never guess! I just got off the phone with Papaw Henry.” Then, in a stage whisper, “He told me he wants to talk to you about a job!”

  At the moment these improbable words were coming out of her mouth, Crail was driving down Broadway past the house where he’d killed Lamar Suggs. The scene advanced in slow motion as his opiated brain disconnected. His lover’s voice drifted to the background as he wondered why that old guy had put up such a fight. Why not just let him have a look around? What was that going to hurt? He didn’t have to stick that fork in him the way he did. He didn’t even have the damn tapes. How stupid was that? He remembered how frail the old man had looked and that made him think of his mama, down to ninety pounds last time he saw her, dying in her bed. He hoped he could get to see her before she passed.

  After a long silence, Cuffie said, “Crail, honey, can you hear me?”

  Her voice brought him back. “A what?”

  “A job!”

  “Doing what?”

  She let out a disappointed sigh. “Sometimes? I just can’t believe you.”

  “I’m just asking what kind of job’s all.”

  “It doesn’t matter, sweetie. Look at it. If Daddy sees that Papaw Henry trusts you enough to do something for him, Daddy’ll have to accept you too. Don’t you see?”

  “But what kind of job is it?”

  “Well, he wasn’t real clear, said he didn’t want to be, being on the phone, but get this. He said he’d had a couple of visitors come by asking questions about people and things that he’d just as soon leave unanswered, right?”

  “D’ee say who it was?”

  “Yes! You’re not going to believe this. Said it was Lollie Woolfolk and Rick Shannon. Can you believe that?”

  “How’d they get together?”

  “I don’t know, honey, but it doesn’t matter. Papaw said some things—and it was just as much in the way he said it as the actual words, you know? But I got the feeling he needs you to do something that’ll let us walk away from this other thing, if you know what I mean.” She paused, waiting for a response, but there was nothing. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah,” Crail said, reaching for a cigarette.

  “You haven’t been to see that … that guy we talked about, have you? That lawyer?”

  Crail glanced in the rearview mirror. “Well, yeah. I got him here in the car with me.”

  “What?”

  “Now don’t worry,” Crail said. “I got some good news too.” He couldn’t wait to hear how she’d change her tune when he told her he’d found the tapes.

  “What do you mean he’s in the car with you? Are you out of your mind?”

  Crail’s jaw clenched. Sometimes? The way she underestimated him just pissed him off. He tried to maintain his composure as he said, “Well now, Cuffie, you weren’t there. You don’t know what all happened, so don’t be talkin’ like that. I got it under control. Damn.” He could hear the sound of tobacco crackling over the phone as she sucked hard on a cigarette. He could see her eyes burning. She was like that sometimes.

  Finally she said, “What kinda good news?”

  “I got rid of all the papers he had in his files, just like you said. That’s all taken care of. And guess what I found in his safe?”

  There was a pause before Cuffie answered. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have ’em?”

  “No I, uh, burned ’em. You said you didn’t want any evidence left, right? Well, they can’t ever be played now, I guarantee.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just did, b
aby.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “Baby, I’m so proud of you. I can’t wait to tell Papaw.” She paused a moment before she said, “Uh, but how come you have the lawyer with you?”

  “I couldn’t just leave him there,” Crail said without further explanation.

  “Okay.” Cuffie accepted the fact that she couldn’t change things. At the same time, she was thrilled that the tapes were no longer a threat. She said, “Baby, you just need to keep it under control, all right?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s cool.”

  Cuffie had her doubts, but she didn’t have time to debate things. The toothpaste was out of the tube on this and all they could do was move forward while cleaning up behind themselves. With that in mind she said, “Look, Papaw wants you to meet him over at his deer camp near Perry Farm. You know where I’m talking about?”

  “Over by Holly Bluff?”

  “Yeah. He’s there now, waitin’ on you.”

  “I can be over there in fifteen minutes.”

  “You do that,” Cuffie said. “But don’t tell him about the tapes. I’ll tell him when the time’s right. You just get over there and see what he wants you to do.”

  “Okay.”

  “And long as you’re there,” Cuffie said, more darkly, “you might as well see about finding a place to leave that lawyer behind.”

  ON THEIR WAY to visit Shelby LeFleur Jr., Rick and Lollie got stuck at a railroad crossing a few miles outside Greenville. Looking out her side of the truck, Lollie thought about how the flowering cotton was so much prettier when you weren’t driving past it at sixty miles an hour.

  Rick looked out his side of the truck at a shotgun shack sitting hard by the railroad tracks. There was an old black woman in a weary housecoat, sitting on her front porch in a rusty lawn chair, rocking just slightly. Rick figured she had to be eighty. He’d never seen a face so spent, like she was too tired to make an expression, unable to do anything but stare straight ahead. It looked like she’d earned the right to sit and rest, like she deserved a better chair but wasn’t going to get one because what you deserve and what you get don’t always turn out to be the same thing.

  After a moment, Rick turned to look at Lollie, who seemed lost in a daydream as she stared out at the cotton. Was there something between them? he wondered. Something that could last, or was it just a passing thing? The sort of thing that tended to happen to two people who’d been in proximity long enough. It wasn’t as if he fell for every woman who came into his office, right? He thought about raising the question, as long as they weresitting there, but then he remembered what she’d said about not wanting to talk the life out of whatever it was, and he thought that was a good idea. He just hoped he got to cash that rain check before she disappeared from his life.

  She turned from looking out the window and said, “It’s hard to believe something as pretty as cotton could cause so much pain.”

  “I believe I’ve said the same thing about women.” Rick reached over and began tuning the radio dial. He found some ag reports on cotton-seed production and got an update on soybean acreage. Then they got a little Jesus and a little Elvis and some other oldies before they came across a distant signal, Led Zeppelin playing through the static. Lollie gave him a sour look and shook her head, prompting him to turn off the radio. “Not a big Zep fan,” she said.

  He nodded. “Even the blues stuff?”

  “What blues stuff? I thought they were just heavy-metal rockers.”

  “Au contraire.” Rick outlined the band’s connection to the music, including the unsavory charge of plagiarism.

  “No kidding?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “‘Bring It on Home’ and ‘Whole Lotta Love.’ ”

  “And they just stole them?”

  “Well, they settled out of court, in Willie Dixon’s favor,” Rick said. “What does that tell you?”

  She shrugged. “I guess they either stole the songs or figured a jury would say they had.”

  Rick tapped his nose, then pointed at her, saying, “Arc Music was the publishing arm for Chess Records, where Dixon was under contract as a songwriter. Arc first sued over ‘Bring It on Home,’ which was credited to Jimmy Page and Roger Plant on Zeppelin II. Arc claimed it was Dixon’s song and got a settlement, but they didn’t bother to share the proceeds with Dixon until his manager did an audit and caught them. Later, Dixon sued Zeppelin, saying that ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was his song ‘You Need Love.’ ” Rick saw the train’s caboose approaching, so he started the truck. He looked over at the shack, but the woman with the weary face was gone.

  “I thought they revered the old blues guys,” Lollie said. “Why steal from your heroes?”

  The truck rumbled over the railroad tracks, prompting Crusty to peek out of his carrier. Rick said, “Probably subconscious plagiarism. Like Harrison cribbing the riffs from ‘He’s So Fine’ to make ‘My Sweet Lord.’ ”

  “That’s a more charitable explanation than I’d expect from you.”

  “Not my words,” Rick said. “The jury’s. If I had to guess, I’d say they figured they could get away with it.”

  Lollie pointed at the coming intersection. “Turn up there.”

  A few minutes later they were standing in front of a spacious colonial revival, fresh yellow paint with white trim. Rick’s head tilted back as he looked up at the second floor and said, “Awful lot of house for one old man.”

  “By the way,” Lollie said. “What’s the plan here? Just introduce ourselves and ask if Lettie has a beauty mark?”

  “Plan? The plan is to wing it.”

  A black woman opened the door. Didn’t say a word. Just stood there looking at them.

  Rick waited for a moment before he said, “Hi, we’d like to see Mr. LeFleur, if we could.” Then he said, “Ma’am.” She looked professional and somewhat reproachful. Rick figured she was more likely a nurse than the housekeeper.

  The woman squinted at Rick and said, “He expectin’ you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Rick said. “And we’re sorry to just drop in like this, but we were hoping we could see him.”

  The woman showed no sign of stepping aside to let them in. She put her fists on her hips. “Wha’ choo wanna see him about?”

  Lollie smiled at Shelby’s protector. She said, “We want to talk to him about a radio station he used to own. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Huh,” the woman said with a little smile. “Take a lot longer’n you think.” She glanced over her shoulder into the house, then back at Lollie. She lowered her voice. “You get that man talkin’, sometimes hard to get him stopped.” She nodded at her own statement. “Wanna tell you everything ever crossed his mind. You’d think at his age he’d get tired, but …” She shook her head and assumed a sympathetic expression. “Main thing is, he’s lonely, you know? All his friends gone, none his family visits ’cept on occasions. Bless his heart, he just want somebody to listen to him while he’s still here, is all.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Rick said.

  “All right, then,” she said. “Who should I say’s callin’?”

  “Tell him it’s Tucker Woolfolk’s granddaughter and a friend,” Lollie said.

  “Well, all right.” She stepped back and gestured for them to come in, then she led them to a large sitting room. “You can wait in here,” she said. “I’ll go check with him.”

  The room was filled with beautiful antiques and LeFleur family photos from the past seventy years, a documentary of the clan’s couplings, offspring, and progress. Rick glanced around and said, “First one to find a mole wins?” He went to the baby grand piano, which was occupied by an army of framed snapshots.

  Lollie wandered in the other direction, marveling at the scope of the gallery. On an antique drum table stood a sterling-silver frame with a picture of a proud man and his boy. “1920” was etched in the corner. Lollie figured this was Shelby LeFleur Sr., with his twelve-year-old son, standing
proudly with arms extended over the high cotton they had nurtured.

  On the mantel was a series of hand-tinted photos of a beautiful young woman in Victorian dress, glancing coyly at the lens. On the back of the frames, she was identified as Wynona Dunaway LeFleur, Shelby Jr.’s long departed mother. Lollie moved to a large framed photo hanging on the wall. It appeared to have been taken at a recent family reunion. She studied it for a moment before gesturing to Rick, saying, “Hey, look at this.” Rick came over to see what she’d found. Lollie tapped her finger on the glass. “That’s Henry,” she said. “So I’m guessing that’s Lettie.” She pointed at the woman’s cheek, saying, “And that’s a beauty mark.”

  Rick looked at it, nodding. “It sure is,” he said. “And in the same place.” His eyes drifted across the photograph, surveying the other faces. After a moment, he fixed on something and leaned closer to be sure. “Well, hello there,” he said.

  Lollie looked but didn’t see whatever Rick did. “What is it?”

  He pointed at a younger woman in the picture and said, “I’ll see your beauty mark and raise you one faux Lollie.”

  25

  DRIVING THROUGH THE flat, virtually featureless Mississippi Delta, one would never guess that the entire region was once a primeval forest. It was only after the government built levees along the river in the late 1800s and slaves cut down the vast, steaming, wooded swamps that the land that made cotton king came to exist in its present form.

  But there was still a reminder of how it used to be, and Henry LeFleur’s deer camp was nestled in the midst of it. He owned a couple hundred acres between the Delta National Forest and the Panther Swamp Wildlife Refuge, one of the few remaining large tracts of mature bottomland hardwoods in the region and home to white-tailed deer, fox, gray squirrels, swamp and cottontail rabbits, raccoon, opossum, and wild turkeys. A hunter’s paradise.