“Busy! Busy with him? What do you mean?”
“What the hell do you think I mean?” she screamed. “Where... where are you going?”
Memphis had pulled the car out of the lane onto the highway and headed back in the direction of the Haynes home.
“They’ll kill him,” he explained.
“This is our chance,” Lena countered. “He doesn’t know you came back. He has no reason to suspect me. Carl is above reproach. Rufus is the only other person who had free access to the house. Can’t you see, Rufus is buying us time.”
“I don’t need that kind of time,” Memphis retorted.
“What difference does it make? He’s just...”
Memphis cut her words off with a sudden stare.
“...somebody who works there.”
She completed the sentence, but Memphis wasn’t sure she had completed the thought.
“He’s my friend,” he stated simply and kept driving.
The house appeared deserted. Only the presence of Carl’s truck adjacent to it betrayed the possibility that someone might be there. Memphis entered the house behind Lena with his pistol drawn and ready. It appeared empty as Lena led him from room to room.
A barely audible sound found their ears. It sounded like voices, but its direction was unclear. She showed him a doorway near the kitchen that led to the basement below.
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you,” Angus Haynes asked upon seeing his daughter, who stood at the top of the stairs.
Memphis stood in the shadows behind her. He could see immediately why she had cowered without going farther. Rufus lay on the floor curled in the fetal position. He moaned with each movement, and he could see the bruises where Carl had beaten him. He gave Lena a gentle nudge, and she started reluctantly down the steps.
As Memphis stepped into view, he saw Carl look away and followed his line of vision to a shotgun propped against the wall.
“You won’t make it,” he warned, allowing them to see his gun.
“You!” Angus Haynes exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get my friend,” Memphis answered. “Rufus didn’t take your money, Mr. Haynes. I did. Morelli followed your orders to the letter, Mr. Haynes. You told him to kill all the colored boys, so you wouldn’t have to pay them. He did just that. At least he tried.”
Haynes’s mouth dropped open with amazement.
“Can you walk, Rufus?” Memphis asked.
Rufus struggled painfully to his feet and staggered toward the stairs.
“You don’t think you’re going to get away with this, do you?” Haynes asked.
Rufus stumbled and Lena draped his arm across her shoulder for support to the astonishment of her father. As they passed in front of Memphis, Carl whirled toward the far wall, grabbed the shotgun, and rolled to one knee. Rufus stumbled forward, falling to his knees as Carl jerked the trigger.
Memphis lunged laterally, firing repeatedly toward the kneeling figure. He saw Carl crumple, but it was too late. He had seen the shotgun blast lift Lena up and fling her toward the stairs. They were all frozen for a moment, in pain and in time. All that Memphis could fathom was the pounding of his heart as he absorbed what had just happened.
Carl was dead. He kicked the shotgun away from him and turned toward Lena. He didn’t bother to approach her. There was too much blood. Nobody could live having lost that much blood.
Angus Haynes was seated on the floor. He was trembling and crying as Memphis stood over him.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “You’ve lost everything, and that’s exactly what you deserve. Besides, I need you alive to keep the cops off my back.” He dropped the empty pistol on the floor in front of Haynes. “You tell the police a story that will explain all of this — why Carl killed Lena and why you killed Carl. I hear you’re good at that sort of thing. Your story had better not include me, or I might have to tell them where all of that money came from. I hear it’s better to grieve in freedom than to grieve in jail. Think about it. Anyway, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking that you’ll eventually catch me, get your money back, and possibly kill me. Hold on to that thought. It could happen, but I promise you, the next time I see you I won’t be so charitable.”
Rufus was halfway up the stairs when Memphis took his arm.
“Who the hell are you?” Haynes cried.
“I’m Travis Redmond from Ahoskie,” Memphis answered. “You know about Ahoskie, don’t you?”
He smiled at the old man as he saw a terrible light of recognition spread across his face. People in that region knew the name Ahoskie — a town with an inordinate share of those with ambiguous racial appearances.
“Those three men you told Morelli to kill were family — my cousins,” Memphis informed him. “Morelli liked to hire men who moved up there from the South. They weren’t as streetwise as those who grew up in New York, but they knew how to play the skin game. Morelli didn’t get the connection because they just didn’t look as white as me. He had to shoot me, because I tried to kill him when I saw what he’d done.”
Memphis led Rufus out into the light. It was a beautiful June morning as they drove toward the state’s northern border.
“Is this Never-Never Land?” Rufus asked.
“Not yet,” Memphis replied.
“I’m sorry about your girl. I might have been wrong about her.”
Memphis nodded without speaking.
“I might have been wrong about something else, too,” Rufus sighed.
Memphis’s eyes left the highway momentarily. Rufus was not a man who often admitted to being mistaken.
“I guess I got at least one white friend,” he said, and they both laughed for a long time.
Russell Davenport and the Housekeeper
by Alex Auswaks
I
The house had belonged to the brigadier’s father, Major-General George Thundackaray-Harding, who had filled it with beautiful old furniture. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. His wife Viola had furnished it, and because the general was very old, and his wife very young, well, much younger than the general, he had let her furnish it as she desired. Viola Thundackaray-Harding had furnished the whole house with superb antique furniture, lovely old china, beautiful carvings, and tapestries. The house and its contents went untouched to their only son William, who followed his father into the army, but, unlike him, did not wait to retire from the army before he took a wife. He married Violet Gumfries, and they lived happily in the large house he had inherited. Had the war lasted longer than it did, or had there been more wars, he probably would have made major general. But fate was unkind to him. When hostilities ceased, he retired as brigadier.
Once he came home, his wife Violet had found that she could not cope with the amount of housework required by such a large establishment and a husband as well. Her part-time maid just would not do, and refused to move in. There was no need to look far for help. The general’s batman, a local St. Albans man, had not survived the war, and his wife was available. She accepted the post of housekeeper, moved in with them, and the three settled down contentedly to middle and old age.
It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Stammers, who suggested the three major additions which occurred in the appearance of the house, within and without. The first of these was the installation of central heating. Mrs. Thundackaray-Harding said she could not bear all those men tramping over her house, putting their rough hands on all that well-polished furniture, and, perhaps, breaking her beautiful china. Mrs. Stammers, on the other hand, had set her heart on having the house centrally heated. She proposed a compromise in the best tradition of British public life. Every year, all three of them moved for a month to Spain, where the brigadier rented a villa by the sea. Mrs. Stammers suggested that the two go ahead without her, and as soon as the central heating was installed, she would clear up the mess, repolish the furniture, and then join them for the rest of the holiday. The brigadier, a brave man who had borne the hardships of military service with Spartan fortitude, gallantly offered to eat in Spanish restaurants till she rejoined them, to save his wife the rigors of preparing meals. All this agreed upon, the general and his wife set off. Mrs. Stammers coped extremely well. The workmen were bribed with meals and an occasional tot from the general’s supply of whisky, and in the event, there was no need to repolish the furniture or pick up bits of china.