House of the Rising Sun

by James Lee Burke

  “What’s Mr. Beckman say?”

  “Nothing. He didn’t say nothing.”

  “Sounds like you messed up proper. Been good knowing you, Jess.”

  Jessie gargled and spat again, his throat choking up. “You backstabbing son of a bitch.”

  Ishmael closed his eyes behind the cotton pads, the animus of the two men no longer his concern, the image of his father embracing him amid the green softness of the hillside as real as the cool air he breathed into his lungs.

  DURING HIS CAPTIVITY, he had invented games to occupy his mind, speculating on the great mysteries that had no solutions, speaking to dead comrades-in-arms, revisiting his lifelong fascination with anthropology and history. By listening to the footfalls and voices of his captors, and the shutting and opening of doors, he knew the basement room he occupied was at the end of a corridor, one that had a stone or brick floor. No, it wasn’t a corridor. It was a tunnel with a trapdoor at the far end, one made out of perhaps oak and steel that fell heavily from a ceiling with enough force to jar the floor. The tunnel smelled of lichen and water seepage. It smelled of the tomb, or a cave deep inside the mists of Avalon, the kind to which mankind continually returned in one way or another. The fascination with the netherworld, the spirits that groaned inside the trunks of trees, the sword frozen in the rock, the hunters chasing the stag across the heavens, all of these things were less about magic than testimony to the glory of creation. It was not coincidence that the walls of the great catacombs of Europe were stacked with row upon row of grinning skulls, as though they had come home and joined a party in progress that no one else saw.

  Shortly after Jessie’s falling-out with Jeff, the sound of the trapdoor striking the floor reverberated down the tunnel, followed by footsteps hammering down steps or a ladder, then the voice of Arnold Beckman shouting, “Get down there, you pair of jackasses, and clean the toilet and the grease trap and mop the floors, and stay there until I get to the bottom of this!”

  “Sir, that woman is lying. She come out of the bedroom in the nude,” another voice said.

  “I understand perfectly. You’re such a debonair and handsome pair that an educated woman can’t keep her clothes on while she’s around you?”

  “No, sir. What I mean is she showed us the scar on her stomach. That’s how come we knew about it. We thought maybe this was something she does to people, like a nymphomaniac carrying on, and you was fixing to tell us not to worry about it, maybe you was just playing a big joke or something. Jesus Christ, Mr. Beckman.”

  “A joke? She says you licked her scar,” Beckman said.

  “Whores lie,” said Jack. He didn’t fit with the others. He was more aggressive, surly, the kind of man who enjoyed fighting with his fists and breaking things.

  “You don’t get to call her a whore,” Beckman said.

  “Okay, she’s not a whore,” Jack said. “She just acts like one. I told her I didn’t like sloppy seconds. It set her off. Whores like to put on airs. But she’s not a whore, so this don’t apply to her.”

  “You said that to Maggie Bassett?” Beckman asked.

  “Who cares what I said? The cunt is lying.”

  “What did you say?”

  “You sent us to watch her. That’s what we done,” Jack said. “Except she snookered all of us. She got Jim and me on the bone, then run us out of her house with a pistol and took you over the hurdles. That don’t make me feel too good. She must be one great piece of ass.”

  “Wait here a minute,” Beckman said.

  “Forget it,” Jack said. “I was at Saint-Mihiel. I knew I shouldn’t have signed on with a Hun. I formally resign and now salute you with both my buttocks. Here, kiss my West Texas ass.”

  A silence followed that was so intense, Ishmael’s eardrums were creaking. Then he heard Beckman’s voice again: “Pull your pants up and look at me.”

  “What for?” Jack replied.

  “This.”

  The blast must have been from a shotgun, probably a twelve-gauge. Ishmael heard the pellets bounce off the stone and scatter along the tunnel. He also heard a scream like that of a man who’d had his eyes gouged out, then the kla-klatch of the empty casing being ejected and another shell being pumped into the chamber. Someone, probably Beckman, was now descending a set of wood steps, his weight balanced, taking each step in measured fashion, the shotgun probably held in one hand.

  “Mr. Beckman, I didn’t say nothing bad about the lady,” Jim said. “She’s got her side of the story. I ain’t criticizing her for it. What I told you is what I saw and what I heard.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Sir, what are you fixing to do?”

  “I’m deciding.”

  “Cain’t you give him a chance?”

  “You want to trade places with him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “A shocking revelation. Can you hear me, Jack?” Beckman said. “Don’t play possum on us. Look up here. You won’t have to worry about boners anymore. How do you like this?”

  There was another blast from the shotgun. This time Ishmael could smell the burned powder.

  “Stop trembling and clean this up,” Beckman said. “Get the others to help you.”

  “Where are we supposed to take him?”

  “Cut him up and put him in the dump.”

  “Sir, what about the soldier?”

  “What about him?”

  “He could hear all this.”

  “Your keen sense of perception always leaves me in awe.”

  Ishmael wasn’t sure if he was alone in the basement. He had heard no sound in his proximity since he was awakened by the trapdoor dropping into the tunnel. He twisted his body on the cot, his wrists manacled to the leather belt, then slowly drew up his knees until they touched the wood poles along the edge of the canvas. Could he roll onto the floor and stand erect? Could he find the wall without falling, and rub the tape and cotton pads from his eyes?

  “Don’t be having those kinds of thoughts, kid,” Jeff said, not more than two feet from him. “They’ll get you in a whole lot of trouble.”

  “Address me as ‘kid’ again, and you’ll have troubles of your own,” Ishmael said. “Ever have your butt kicked by a blindfolded gimp?”

  DARL PICKINS STOPPED the Kerr County Sheriff’s Department motorcar in front of Maggie Bassett’s house. The rain was puddling on the lawn, the sky black except for an occasional igneous pool that flared and disappeared like a yellow lake draining into the dark.

  Andre was sitting in the front with Darl, Hackberry in back.

  “Want us to wait out here?” Darl said.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Hackberry said. “Maggie is not given to predictability or protocol.”

  Darl nodded as though he understood, which he obviously did not. “Can you tell me exactly what we’re doing here, Mr. Holland?”

  “I didn’t tell you why because I don’t know myself. I was married to the woman for years and never had any idea who I was living with. It was like waking up every day with a stranger in my bed. I won’t get into the conjugal side of things.”

  Darl squeezed his eyes shut as though he had a headache. “We’re here for reasons we have no understanding of?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That doesn’t make real good sense, sir.”

  “Put it this way: Maggie Bassett is the most dishonest and manipulative human being I have ever known. She could sell hot-water radiators to the devil and snow to Eskimos. You said maybe she should be sitting in a jail cell. That’s one place Maggie has never been. I wonder what she’ll have to say if she thinks she’s going there.”

  “That’s pretty slick,” Darl said. “So we wait out here while you go in, and she looks out the window at a car from the sheriff’s department and has to study on her prospects?”

  “You’ve got your hand on it.”

  “Was she really tied up with the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy? They was pretty mangy, wasn’t they?”

  “Thanks fo
r that reminder, Darl. I’ll be back out soon.”

  “Anything you want us to do in the meantime?”

  “Wait in the car. When you see me come out of the house, that will mean it’s time for us to leave and go somewhere else.”

  “I got it,” Darl said.

  Hackberry knocked on the door. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he opened it. She was wearing a white cotton nightdress, unbuttoned at the top, so gauzy it was almost transparent, her face and shoulders and chest crosshatched with scratches and welts, as though she had been clawed by a rosebush.

  “Excuse my appearance,” she said. “I just got out of the shower. I’m trying to clean up the house now.”

  He removed his hat and looked away from her and then back at her face. Some of the scratches on her chest had bled through the nightdress. “Who did this to you?”

  She closed the door behind him and walked into the living room. Through the kitchen door, he could see a mop and a broom and cleaning rags and a bucket of soapy water. The living room rug was printed with mud or clay.

  “Arnold sent his men over,” she said. “Two of them. Maybe you’ve met them.”

  “I don’t need to meet them. They attacked you?”

  “I’ve already talked with Arnold. I thought you were the police. I thought he might have called them.”

  “Did they rape you, Maggie?”

  “I’m taking care of things. I don’t need any help. Why are you here?”

  “Why do you think? My son’s time is probably running out. You have to tell me what you know.”

  “You think I’m privy to all of Arnold’s secrets. I’m not. He owns property all over Texas. Ishmael could be anywhere.”

  “Give me something. Anything. Even if it seems unimportant.”

  Then a phenomenon took place in her eyes that he had seen before but had never been able to deal with. They became impenetrable, the pupils reduced to dots, the irises made up of tiny green and black and blue pinpoints that yielded no emotion, no message or signal or content of any kind. It was a look men could not disengage from; at the same time, it made them wonder why they had ever gotten involved with her.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I need to tell you something. I’ve never told this to anyone else.”

  “Say it.”

  “When you tried to make up to Ruby years ago, when she was living in Denver, she wrote you back and telegrammed you. I read the messages and destroyed them. You thought she didn’t want you back. It wasn’t true, but I made you believe it was.”

  “I have a hard time accepting that, Maggie.”

  “It’s what happened. You want coffee? I have some on the stove.”

  “No, I don’t want coffee. Why did you do that?”

  “It seemed like the right thing at the time. I was your wife, she wasn’t. I ruined a large part of y’all’s lives, particularly Ishmael’s. You have bad judgment when it comes to women, Hack. Except for Ruby. I have to give it to her.”

  He looked at the blood stippled on her dress, the scratches next to her eyes. “If I had taken care of my obligations and been more a decent man, we wouldn’t have these problems. It’s not your fault.”

  “Watch out for the DeMolay woman. She’s in business with Arnold. They’re shipping German rifles to South America.”

  “I didn’t think she’d do something like that.”

  “You think you’re a dissolute drunk. The truth is, you’re a rube. I’m not doing well with this. Get out of here, Hack.”

  “Doing well with what? The attack? Your feelings?”

  “It could have been different. I did it my way, and now I get to live with it. So long, Big Bud. Look me up if Ruby throws you out.”

  Those were the last words he ever heard from the lips of Maggie Bassett.

  HE GOT INTO the backseat of the car and sat with his hands on his knees, his face empty, rain dripping off his hat brim. Andre turned in the front seat and looked at him; Darl was at the wheel, watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “A couple of Beckman’s men were here,” Hackberry said. “She’s not in real good shape right now.”

  “What’d they do?” Darl said.

  “Somebody marked her up. She says it was Beckman’s people.”

  “You don’t believe her?” Darl asked.

  “I think if they’d tried, they’d be dead. Andre, is Miss Beatrice cutting an arms deal with Beckman?”

  “I do not ask about her business matters or her personal life, Mr. Holland.”

  “You don’t need to ask. You see and hear everything,” Hackberry said. “You put me in mind of a giant pterodactyl flying over the landscape.”

  “A what?”

  “What was she doing in Beckman’s office?” Hackberry said. “Why would she be with a man of his kind? I can abide anything in human beings except treachery.”

  “It is not good to talk of her this way, Mr. Holland.”

  “I do so only because I put my faith in her,” Hackberry said, his voice rising. “I misplaced it.”

  “You are in an emotional state right now,” Andre said. “It is better you review your words before you speak them.”

  “It’s better I don’t hold conversations with pterodactyls. I’m going to give it to him.”

  Darl turned around. “You’re gonna give the cup Jesus drunk from to a fellow like that? That ain’t right, Mr. Holland.”

  “In a public place, where everyone will know he has it. He’ll be forced to return it to wherever it came from. He’ll no longer have any reason to hold my son.”

  “You’re deceiving yourself, Mr. Holland,” Andre said. “Do not do this. You know better. Do not give yourself over to foolish thinking. If you give the cup to this man, you will never forgive yourself. Nor will I.”

  “Did torturing and killing those men in Haiti get your children back?” Hackberry said.

  “No, it did not. But it purged the world of men who had no right to live. Also, no other child had to suffer at their hands.”

  “Take me to Beckman’s office.”

  “Where is the cup?” Andre said.

  “In a place nobody is going to find it.”

  “You are acting in a willful and stubborn fashion, Mr. Holland. There is only one alternative for us. I do not want the young deputy to hear this. You know what we must do. There are instances when we have to put aside the restraints of mercy.”

  “You’re right, Andre, I don’t want to hear this,” Darl said. “And as a deputy sheriff of Kerr County, I’d damn well better not.”

  “I think Darl means it, Andre,” Hackberry said.

  “Where is the cup?” Andre said.

  “In the kind of place it should be. In a place the original owner would probably be happy to see it.”

  “You’ve been told you were chosen,” Andre said. “But you have never asked what you were chosen for. Do you think you were chosen only to protect the cup? There are many who could have done that.”

  “Those words were spoken to me in a dream,” Hackberry said. “The only person I told of this dream was Miss Beatrice. Did she tell you about it?”

  “No, she did not. She is not one who breaks confidences.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  “I know little and am not worthy to speak on these things. So I will do as you say and not speak on these matters again.”

  “Don’t get your feathers ruffled,” Hackberry said. “I value your advice.”

  Andre made no reply. They drove to the office of Arnold Beckman.

  THE ASIAN SECRETARY said he was eating with friends at a steak house not far from the Alamo. Hackberry nodded and looked through the front window at the sky. “You ever see weather worse than this?” he asked.

  “No, it is very bad. It is flooding the property,” she said.

  “You ever meet my son, Ishmael?”

  “I have heard Mr. Beckman speak of him, but I do not know him.”

  “I cain’t find him anywh
ere. I was hoping Mr. Beckman could he’p me. With all his resources and such.”

  “I am sure he would be happy to.”

  “My boy was hurt in France and gets confused about where he is. He had the notion he was going to work for Mr. Beckman. Sometimes I wonder if he wandered into one of Mr. Beckman’s warehouses or storage places and got himself locked in.”

  “I will make a note of this. But I don’t think that is likely. The employees would have told us.”

  “Maybe he wandered off to a hunting or fishing camp or a boathouse. I bet your boss has a mess of them.”

  “No, Mr. Beckman is not a hunter or fisherman or sportsman. His interest is history. He wanted to buy the Spanish mission by the river, but the owners would not sell it. Mr. Beckman was very disappointed.”

  “Why would he want a run-down mission?”

  “Possibly to restore it. This is a very historical area. He and my grandfather do many civic-oriented works. Did you know this site was once a prison?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Ask Mr. Beckman about it.”

  “I might do that,” Hackberry said.

  DARL PARKED IN front of the restaurant, cut the engine, and got out, his slicker blowing in the wind. Hackberry stepped up on the curb and stood beside him. From where they stood, they could see both the Alamo and the upper stories of the Crockett Hotel, the windows lit against a black sky. The window of the restaurant was painted with the words CHOPS*STEAKS*FISH, steam or fog running down the glass. The rain was driving almost sideways in the street, the sewer grates clogged with flotsam.

  Andre had not gotten out of the car. Hackberry tapped on his window. “Let’s go.”

  Andre rolled down the glass. “People of color are not allowed here.”

  “They just had a change in policy. Now get out.”

  Andre stepped out on the sidewalk, his bare head beading with rain. “I’m beginning to understand why you do not have many friends, Mr. Holland.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It is very dangerous,” Andre replied.

  Hackberry opened the restaurant door and walked in first. The interior was warm and brightly lit, the tables crowded, the walls lined with framed photos of cattle drives and drovers gathered around campfires and buffalo hunters posing with cap-and-ball weapons and squaws whose faces had been cut for infidelity. Hackberry wondered how many of them he had known and how many lay in unmarked graves.