“And the show was two runt oxen, that an old buzzard drove in every week, to make his week’s groceries with. The store kind of helped him out, by keeping silver dollars for him, silver dollars in the till, and how the thing worked was: The old buzzard would find him a sucker, and then bet him a silver dollar that he could throw it down — down in the dirt in front of the store, then roll the cartwheel on it, by word command to the oxen, and then talk them around. He would talk ’em, till they turned the cart clear around, sidewise a step at a time, without coming off the dollar. If they did the dollar was his, his coffee and sugar and flour for the week — but they always did and it was quite a show, that everyone gathered to watch, as he talked to them sweet and low, ‘Petty-whoa, petty-whoa, petty-whoa,’ always guiding to the left, and they would work the tongue around, swinging their heads together, braiding and unbraiding their legs. So, Mr. Kirby, on this particular day, the oxen were halfway around, with three-four hundred people gathered around, my grandfather with the rest, when a guy drove up in a Buick, sore as a boil at the storekeeper on the Bryantown Road.”
Mrs. Lang stopped up her ears by pushing her fingertips into them, but he kept right on: “‘Is that a way to do business?’” he bellowed at everyone. “‘On a Saturday afternoon? He’s locked up his goddamn store, so he can screw the egg-woman? Couldn’t he screw her some other time?’”
“My grandfather borrowed the Buick, ran on out to his place, picked up his thirty-eight, and ran on down to the store, which sure enough was still locked. He called that storekeeper out and shot him through the heart. That’s how my family does, when something like this comes up. What wipes out that stain is blood! And short of blood, you ought to be thankful for anything! That I don’t do to your brother what my grandfather did to that storekeeper! You ought to be down on your knees.”
“You said it once, no need to say it twice.”
But now Mrs. Lang had taken her fingers out, and told him, very bitter: “You shouldn’t have said it! You shouldn’t have said it at all! How could you tell him that, with me sitting here, your wife? Why couldn’t you have more respect?”
“I tell it all, so he knows what he’s up against!”
“You did not! You didn’t tell it all! You didn’t tell why the store was locked up, the real reason, not the one he said, that crazy man in the Buick. It was so he could candle her eggs that the storekeeper locked up his place! She brought in thirteen dozen eggs, and he had to candle them — for that he had to have dark, and that’s why he locked up his store! But to keep from getting hung, your grandfather blackened her name, so he could claim the unwritten law! And it broke them up and ruined her life, and I simply do not see how you can brag about it. And I also do not see how you’re willing to do what he did, blacken a woman’s name, blacken your own Sonya’s name, to do in the name of your family what you should be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed of it, I’m proud.”
“You mean to kill Burl?” I asked him.
“I don’t have to say what I mean.”
“Oh yes you do, because if you don’t, I’m calling the police and filing charges against you. Spit it out! What do you mean, Mr. Lang?”
She said: “Louis, you heard him?”
“I mean, on behalf of my child, so she gets compensated, in place of blood to take money.”
“I already offered you money.”
“Your money, you did. It has to be his money. And a great deal more money than the piddling amount you quoted to me.”
“He doesn’t have any money.”
“I happen to know he does have.”
“I’m his half brother, I think I know—”
“I work in his bank. I know I know.”
“Difference of opinion is what makes a horserace.”
“Was there something else, Mr. Kirby?”
“I go, I bid you good day.”
Mrs. Lang took me to the door, patted my hand, and thanked me for being so considerate of Sonya.
Chapter 4
My mother has one of the few stone houses in this neck of the woods, a pretty little place on Sheridan, a few blocks south of the Langs, and one block north of East-West, an arterial street in Riverdale. I say “little,” but actually it’s somewhat bigger inside than it looks to be from without. There’s a small stone portico, leading to an entrance hall, which is at the side of the house, not in the center, so the living room is quite large, being almost as wide as the house. It has a stone fireplace facing the arch from the hall, and its a bit on the dark side, as the drapes are dark red brocade.
I pulled up around 11:15, parked, and looked for Burl’s car. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t prove anything, and I admit I was pretty nervous, wondering what I would say if I had to face him. But Mother opened the door, when I was halfway up the walk. She took me in her arms and kissed me, then kissed me again, which for her was the equivalent of a crack-up for somebody else.
She’s in her late forties, but looks more like the thirties. She’s quite a dish, a bit on the sexy side. She’s a bit above medium height, but not what you’d call tall, and though not fat has plenty of shape, especially through the chest. Her hair is dark, with just a streak of gray, her skin pale with an ivory tint. Her face is a little heavy though nicely molded. Her eyes are brown, and not warm, or cold, or anything. They’re poker-player’s eyes, except that at times, as now, they can be very soft.
“Gramie!” she moaned. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. Oh, thank God you’ve come!”
Actually, she said “Gawd,” in the Virginia way she had, as originally she came from Berryville, being of the Burwell family there, who are proud, perhaps a little too proud, of their relationship to one of Jefferson’s secretaries. She was brought to Maryland when young, but sometimes the Old Dominion bleeds through in the way she talks, as when she says cyard for card, and gyarden for garden, or gyowden as I call it, when I’m having fun with her. But we weren’t having fun now, and I just held her close, whispering, “I came the first moment I could, the very first moment I could.”
She unwound herself from my arms, took my hand, and led me into the living room, where she sat me down on the sofa, the big one facing the fireplace, and then camped herself down beside me. I went on: “I’d have been here an hour ago, except that I had to see Lang—”
“He’s a perfectly horrible man!”
“He’s the father of a girl in trouble.”
“My heart bleeds for her. Did he let you see her?”
“She came to see me, this morning.”
“Oh, then you’ve talked with her?”
I gave it to her quick, what Sonya had told me, at least the highlights of it, then told of my offer to Lang, and the brush he had given it. I asked: “Mother, what does he think he’s up to? At my offer, he practically spit in my eye, and then said pointblank he’d take nobody’s money but Burl’s. But Burl doesn’t have any money! That stands to reason, and yet Lang says he has, and that he knows he knows. What’s it about, do you know?”
“Not really, but I’m terrified.”
“Have you given Burl money?”
“Only his allowance, this fifty a week we’ve kicked in with, you and I together, since he got out of the Army. He could have money, though.”
“But how? Where would he get it?”