Southern Cross Page 27

  He was shaking his head before I finished. “It’s bull pucky. Hell, man, I’m the next thing to retired. Been wishing I was dead for twenty years.”

  “Which brings us to your real grievance.”

  Monty wriggled in his chair and made it creak at its joints like a sloop in a storm. “I don’t know what the sam hell you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do,” I said. “Your real gripe against Seth Hartman is that a quarter-century ago, he wasn’t man enough to keep your daughter out of the arms of Monroe Morrison.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  His voice took on the hard, hot crust of molten lead; he looked at me with naked hatred. “You’re in the wrong part of the country to be singing that song, boy.”

  I reclined on the chaise and clasped my hands behind my head, prepared to stay till doomsday. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, Mr. Hendersen. When Seth and Jane Jean and Monroe and Aldee were up in Columbia registering people to vote, your daughter had a fling. Idealistic young white girl working side by side with a committed young black man, coming in from a day of getting spat on and cursed and threatened with mob violence to find solace in each other’s arms—a fertile field for romance. But in this case, it didn’t end there. There was fallout, as there often is with sex. Some of it got Aldee Blackwell fired, because Seth thought Jane Jean was having the affair with Aldee. And some of it hit you.”

  “You’re not making sense. I barely remember my bird dog’s name, let alone who was funning who in those days.”

  “You remember your daughter got pregnant,” I declared. “With Monroe Morrison’s child. I don’t think Seth knew, and I’m not sure Monroe did, either. But you did.”

  His look was meant to melt the circuits in my brain. “There’s no way on God’s green earth you can prove that.”

  “You’re probably right, since you got rid of the evidence.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Instead of having the child, Jane Jean had an abortion. I’m sure you paid for it, and you probably found the doctor, too, since back then abortion was not only expensive and illegal, it was also dangerous.”

  Monty swelled with indignation. “You’re saying I’m perturbed because my daughter didn’t give birth to a mulatto?”

  “I’m saying that as a result of the abortion, your daughter couldn’t have children. Which meant you couldn’t have grandchildren. Which means when you’ve gone to your Maker, the Hendersen line will die. They stole your immortality, Monty, and now that you’re pushing seventy, it’s preying on your mind. The fact that the man who’d seduced and abandoned your daughter was about to be elected to Congress made it all the more insupportable that his sin was unavenged.”

  Hendersen reached in the cooler, took out a beer, and twisted off the top the way he would have liked to twist my neck. “There’s no one alive who will open his mouth about any of this.”

  “I’m not sure about that; you cast your net pretty wide. It wouldn’t surprise me, for example, if you were the one who suggested to Mr. Keystone that he turn double agent and set up Morrison on the bribery charge, just to make sure that when he fell, he fell all the way to the bottom.”

  Monty drained half his beer, then looked at me. “If you think you’ll be doing anyone a favor by bringing this out, think again. Monroe’s career would end in a New York minute; he couldn’t be elected poultry inspector. And Aldee would be gutted like a grouper by those hoodlums he hangs out with.”

  “Quite possibly,” I admitted. “The problem for you is, I couldn’t care less.”

  Monty decided to track his options. “Have you talked about this with anyone?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Fixing to?”

  “Not if you shut it down.”

  “Shut what down?”

  “The Alliance for Southern Pride.”

  “Never heard of ’em.”

  I got Alameda’s tape from my pocket and walked to the Sony and started it. As Colin’s words spun into the dusky air, they seemed even more rancid than before, a mate with the stench of rotting fish that seeped at us from the nearby shore.

  As the tape wound to a close, I looked at Hendersen. “Proud of yourself?”

  His expression was ashen and unhealthy, but he was determined to bluff it out. “What makes you think I got my foot in that boot?”

  “Because I took a MAC-ten assault weapon away from Colin Hartman last night, and stashed it in your car and forgot about it. This morning, Seth returned the car to you. A few hours later, that same weapon was leaning against the wall in Forrest Bedford’s bunker, down on Folly Beach.” I smiled. “It may not be enough for a D.A., but it’s enough for me.”

  He thought it over so long I knew he was going to stonewall. “If you know Bedford, then you know he doesn’t fish that lake for money,” he said. “He won’t turn tail even if I pinch off the teat.”

  “He doesn’t have to turn tail; he just has to lay off the Hartmans. And I think I’ve persuaded him to do it.”

  “How?”

  “None of your business.”

  He finished his beer in a single gulp. “Damn. Seth’s baby girl almost fucked me dry.” He hoped I’d be insulted by his vulgarity; when he saw that I wasn’t, he erupted.

  “Even if this shit storm was true, what do you think you can do about it, you California sumbitch? Folks in Charleston owe me; they owe me big. You go to anyone with this, you won’t float out of the swamp till a year from Thursday.”

  I walked across the room and picked up the phone and dialed a number I got from my wallet. As it rang, I returned to the chaise and lay back like an heir to a small fortune.

  “Some of my cases have ended with gunplay,” I mused easily. “And some with a brawl, some with a confession, and a few with a raid by the cops. This one’s going to end with an aria.”

  Monty helped himself to another beer.

  “Yeah?”

  “Aldo Benedetti, please.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “A friend of Callie’s; I called an hour ago. If Aldo doesn’t want to be on the front page of the Charleston newspaper tomorrow, he needs to talk to me a minute.”

  The phone banged and the background buzzed and another voice came on the line, simultaneously intimidating and restrained. “What’s this shit about Callie? I talked to her ten minutes ago—she never heard of you.”

  “I needed a way to get to you, so I used her name.”

  “She’s got nothing to do with it?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t like people who mix family with business.”

  “It’s lousy; I apologize.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Your car business in Charleston.”

  He hesitated. “Who says I’ve got a car business in Charleston?”

  “I do.”

  “If I do, what about it?”

  “Your manager has been playing games, and they’re going to get you in trouble.”

  “Games? What kind of games?”

  “Burning crosses on black people’s lawns.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Like the Klan and that shit?”

  “The same.”

  “You’re saying fucking Bilbow is in the fucking Klan?”

  “I’m saying he’s working with a group called ASP. The Alliance for Southern Pride, they call themselves.”

  Monty Hendersen coughed and choked and spit a mouthful of beer across his naked chest.

  “Bilbow and this outfit burned a cross?” Aldo asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Cops know about it?”

  “They know about the cross; they don’t know about Bilbow.”

  “They going to?”

  “Not if Bilbow and ASP give up the race games.”

  “What makes you think they’ll do that?”

  “Because you’re going to tell them to.”

  He thought it over. “Bilbow, oka
y. He doesn’t wipe his ass unless I provide the paper. But this other outfit. This ASP. How do I get in touch with them?”

  “The headman is right beside me. Tell him who you are and what will happen if ASP and Bilbow don’t leave innocent people alone.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “No names for now. Just tell him why he should cease and desist. Tell him about the eyeballs.”

  I held out the phone to Hendersen. “It’s a tenor, not a fat lady, but the rule still applies—it’s over, Monty.”

  He took the phone from my fingers, but his hands were so wet he dropped it.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  When I got back to the Home, I knocked on Scar Raveneau’s door. When she didn’t answer, I went down to my room and called her home number. When she came on the line, I asked if I could take her to dinner.

  “I don’t think so,” she said huskily, the words a throaty buzz in my ear.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve had enough pain in my life for a while.” She sighed. “It’s not your fault. It’s just that I’ve got all this love in me, and what I want most in the world is to give it to someone, but the only men who come along are the ones who can’t use it.”

  “It’s not that; it’s just … logistical. It might be different if I lived down here.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Don’t beat up on yourself that way. The other night was great—one of the best times I’ve ever had.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “That’s something, I guess.”

  “It’s almost everything, isn’t it?”

  “Not even close.” Her voice turned raw and defensive. “You said I should decide whether I wanted something or nothing. Well, I decided to settle for nothing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it doesn’t hurt as much.”

  She hung up in the middle of my ungainly attempt to rebut her.

  I took a deep breath, fixed a strong drink, and dug another number from my wallet. “I don’t think I’m going to make it,” I said when she came on the line.

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “No.”

  “Sad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Then why don’t you come up?”

  “I will someday. I promise. But not now.”

  “Why not now?”

  “I need to recuperate a bit.”

  She hesitated. “That sounds ominous; what on earth happened down there?”

  “The old days crawled out from under a rock and sort of made a mess of things.”

  “They have a tendency to do that.” Her laugh was dry and distant—defense mechanisms fully engaged. “Are you all right? How’s Seth?”

  “I’m fine. Seth will be fine, too. But it’s going to take a while—we cut each other up a bit.”

  “Not literally, I hope.”

  “Close enough.”

  “But why? What did he do to you?”

  “A long time ago, I decided he was perfect. When he proved I was wrong, I got mad at him.”

  “And what did you do to him?”

  “I shined a bright light on the people he loves most in the world and some scars showed up.”

  “I still don’t understand, but I have a feeling I’m not supposed to. I’ve been wondering if you answered the question.”

  “What question?”

  “Whether you’re a success or a failure.”

  “I guess what I’ve done is decide it’s irrelevant.”

  “Why?”

  “Because all I really need to know is that I enjoy what I do, and I’m good at it, and I do it better than I’d do anything else. And that once in a while I help more than hurt. It’s difficult to keep it in mind sometimes, but if I do, I think I can live with the situation.”

  “What makes it so difficult for you to feel successful?”

  “Because my work is a zero-sum game. When a doctor heals a patient, another patient doesn’t die; when a pilot lands an airplane, another aircraft doesn’t crash. But when I solve a problem for one person, I tend to make a problem for someone else: The client goes to dinner; his nemesis goes to jail. Usually it’s an easy exchange—help the good guy; lock up the bad. But sometimes the trade-off isn’t comfortable. In Seth’s situation—”

  “I didn’t know Seth had a situation,” she interrupted.

  “Well, he does. Or did. It’s taken care of, pretty much—the bad guy was a frightened old man who was afraid the world was going to forget him, a nobleman who became a thug because he couldn’t abide his own mortality.”

  “Is he going to jail?”

  “Just purgatory.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “I think so.”

  As far as I could tell, it was true. Seth’s burdens had been lightened, Alameda would have her chance to attend the Palisade, Monroe Morrison would have a fair trial, and Colin Hartman would be pried away from ASP. I’d done what I’d been hired to do, and more. If someday South Carolina honors Monty Hendersen the way it ought to, the damage I’d done wouldn’t be permanent.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed our time at the reunion.”

  “Me, too.”

  “San Francisco probably could use a good caterer, you know.”

  “I doubt it. But I’m sure Baltimore could use a good detective.”

  “If I run into one, I’ll let him know.”

  “I never did like false humility. I don’t know if I mentioned it.”

  I laughed. “I’m sure you did. Well …”

  “Well …”

  “See you, I guess.”

  “Yeah. See you, Marsh. But where?”

  “There’s always another reunion.”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the John Marshall Tanner Mysteries

  CHAPTER 1

  The routine is so familiar she completes it without thinking: the crusty stick of pancake dabbed onto the offending bruise, then powder brushed across the base to meld with the pink of her depilated flesh. Four moles and one scar are similarly obliterated—shoulder, chest, knee, and forearm—plus two minor bulbs of acne dispensed with in the way she dispensed with them in junior high school. For the physiography below her neck, the process takes five minutes. It is one of the reasons he uses her, she knows, the comparatively unflecked ocean of her skin. It is as though God had foreseen her calling and airbrushed her out of the box.

  The only mirror leans against the wall of the closet that serves as a dressing, or rather undressing, room; the only light is a naked bulb activated by a dingy pull cord. Ten years from now such an environment will produce a jarring reflection that will confirm her mortality by highlighting her erosions, but for now the pitiless glare reveals no hint of the withering that lies in store. She has, she concludes for the hundredth time because it is crucial for her to do so, the best body she has ever seen. It is her triumph that she is at long last using it for a worthy purpose.

  To make certain her lips and hair and eyes are edged and curled and greased the way he likes them, she must get on her knees like a charwoman for inspection in the makeshift mirror. A month ago, she submitted to such indignities without objection, as a necessary prelude to her art. Now she is as insulted by them as she is by the ego and ethics of the man whose personal and professional impulses she is about to indulge for the last time, unbeknownst to him.

  She adds one last smear of gloss to her lips, makes a final shove at her hair, runs a comb through the wiry tuft at her pubis, blots away the drop of sweat that tarries between her breasts, and walks into the studio, which is in reality the dreary apartment of the photographer. More confident now that she is out of her clothes than when in them, she takes her place in front of the gray sheet he has tacked to a hideously paneled wall to form the proverbial neutral backdrop and waits for him to finish with the floodlights. Her feet hurt already, and she
is cold enough to shiver, but only the latter sensation will be of interest to him, since it causes her nipples to elongate and that might not be what he has in mind this afternoon although he has certainly had it in mind before, to the point of applying ice.

  Finally, he looks up. His appraisal is quick and clinical and suddenly mean. “You’ve gained weight.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “If your belly gets any bigger, I can’t use you.”

  She resists the urge to tell him, then and there, that she is finished with both his ego and his talent, that tomorrow she will resume her search for someone who can more fully realize what has become her only dream. But she promised him another shoot after he begged forgiveness for the last one, and his gear is set up and her afternoon is free, so she stays because she owes him, both for introducing her to the ecstasy of figure modeling and for buying her a new CD player when her old one got ripped off.

  It seems impossible that it was a whole year ago that Gary made his move. It had taken weeks of pleading and begging and bribing, plus a lecture on the history of artists and models and the symbiosis implicit in such relationships, before he persuaded her to pose for him, first for a series of sullen head shots for use on alternative rock posters, then in some low-end fashion layouts featuring leather mini-dresses and studded bustiers. Only then did they move to figure work.

  She can still marvel at the moment she slipped out of her robe as he bent over his viewfinder, and there was no obstruction between her and the omnivorous lens that inspected her so piteously. She was nervous, and scared, and ashamed, and on the brink of flight until she realized that the one-eyed God perched atop its tripod passed no judgment on what it saw, offered no warnings, issued no advice. With realization came transformation: her mind encompassed only her topology; the experience of oneness with her flesh was a revelation as intoxicating as her first forays into sex. When she is naked, and the shutter lurks in readiness to suck her image off her self and onto the emulsion to its rear, she is empty of all but the desire to let the camera have its way with her, the desire to inform and impress and astound, the desire to make what the world will ultimately acknowledge as the truth and magic of pure art.