This did not include Chief Judy Hammer, since she was originally from Arkansas. She ran through the ivy-framed entrance and up the old brick front steps of the historic and aristocratic club where women could not be members, but as guests of husbands or male friends were welcome to enjoy all amenities except the Victorian bar, Men's Grill, swimming pool, gym, steam and sauna rooms, squash and racquetball courts and reading rooms. Such restrictions were of little concern to public-service minded women busy with forming various committees for the Bal du Bois and its debutantes, or supporting the arts with auctions of wine, vacations, fine jewelry and other luxury items, or planning wedding receptions or exhibits for the Maymont Flower amp; Garden Show, or lunching with the Virginia Federation of Garden Clubs, Daughters of the American Revolution or Daughters of the Confederacy, and with the Junior League, and of course, first families of Virginia and wives of legislators.
Hammer was twenty minutes late. She rushed into the marble foyer, impervious to the splendid Oriental rug, the antique crystal chandelier, the velvet love seat and gilt mirrors and wall-size portrait of George Washington. She did not pause to check her coat or to admire the stunning paintings of Robert E. Lee and Lighthorse Harry. Judy Hammer had little interest in a hundred-and-eight-year-old club founded by former Confederate officers who, according to the original charter, wished to promote social intercourse and maintain a library.
The door to the board room on the first floor was shut. She opened it slowly and quietly as Lelia Ehrhart held forth. Hammer scanned the faces of City Councilman Reverend Solomon Jackson, Mayor Stuart Lamb, Lieutenant Governor June Miller, NationsBank president Dick Albright, Richmond-Times Dispatch publisher James Eaton, and Metropolitan Richmond Convention amp; Visitors Bureau president Fred Ross.
The men glanced at Hammer. Several of them nodded. All of them looked restless and ready to tell Ehrhart to commit suicide. Hammer found a seat.
'… It's so much and more than the city of the deads,' Ehrhart was saying with authority. 'It is the Valhalla of we brave mens who carried the Southern Cross into their bosom of deadly, waving it for the because of states' right, to at last be buried, many we don't know who, in Hollywood.'
Ehrhart would have been a stunning blond were it not for several physical flaws that caused her to be more unpleasant and driven than she otherwise might have been. Her hair wasn't really as blond as she let on, and as she got older it was getting darker, requiring frequent trips to the Simon amp; Gregory hair salon. Nor did arduous hours with her personal trainer remedy her genetically coded long neck, narrow shoulders, tiny breasts and broad hips.
Ehrhart covered up as best she could, exclusively in Escada. This morning she was dazzling in a blaze orange skirt and blouse with matching earrings, pumps and purse. Hammer, out of breath and perspiring beneath her gray pinstripe suit, thought Ehrhart looked like a traffic cone.
'Two presidents and five governors are restful there,' she preached. 'Not to forget, also, Brigadier Generals Armistead, Gracie, Gregg, Morgan, Paxton, Stafford and Hill.'
'Hill was a major general,' Lieutenant Governor Miller remarked blandly. 'And all the generals you just mentioned were interred in Hollywood only for a time. Aren't still there, in other words.'
Ehrhart had found the seven names in the back of a booklet listing Confederate States of America generals, and had not noticed nor comprehended the parenthetical phrase interred for a time. Indeed, it wasn't until this moment she realized her husband's alleged ancestor, General Bull Paxton, was among the seven war heroes whose remains she was now being told had been moved out of the cemetery. Ehrhart refused to stand corrected.
'I believe I'm in the right.' She smiled coolly at the lieutenant governor.
'You're not,' he matter-of-factly replied in a voice that rarely rose or showed strain. 'There are twenty-five generals in Hollywood, but not those seven. You might want to go back and check your booklet.'
'What booklet?'
The one you didn't read very carefully,' he said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bubba, Smudge, Half Shell and Tree Buster had spent the night in the woods. This was not by choice. When Bubba had blasted the rubber rattlesnake and Smudge had taken a flying leap, Smudge had ended up with a bump on his head.
Smudge was confused and disoriented and bleeding a little. This left navigation entirely in Bubba's hands. It meant he alone had to restrain two dogs on leashes to make sure that one or both of them didn't go after a coon.
'Watch the root there,' Bubba said to Smudge as they trudged through brush and trees so thick they could have been in a rain forest for all Bubba knew.
'How far?' Smudge slurred.
'Can't be much farther.' Bubba said what he had been saying for the past eight hours.
Smudge wasn't going to be able to walk much longer. It was a good thing Bubba had brought food, although it was a shame he had stuffed half of his Cheez Whiz sandwich in a knothole. Boy, what he wouldn't give for that now. At least water wasn't a problem. The fucking stuff was everywhere, and each time they happened upon it, Half Shell would dig in her feet and bark, and Bubba would have to carry her over another creek, some of which were very swift and deep. The only thing that kept Bubba going was anger.
'I still can't get over what a rotten thing that was to do,' he said to Smudge yet once again.
Smudge was too exhausted and disoriented to answer.
'I could've had a heart attack. You're just lucky I'm a nice guy.'
They reached another creek, this one a trickle, but Half Shell didn't care.
'I've had it,' Bubba said to the dogs. 'I can't drag your asses another step.' He unhooked their leashes. 'You're on your own.'
Tree Buster shot off like a rubber band, crashing through brush and barking three times for a strike that no one gave a goddamn about. Half Shell went off to the left. She kept looking back at Bubba every couple of steps, her eyes intense and caring.
'What is it?' Bubba asked her.
Half Shell ran ahead ten feet and looked back again.
'We supposed to follow you?' Bubba asked his dog.
Half Shell barked. Bubba and Smudge followed her for another forty-five minutes while Tree Buster treed coons and wondered why nobody showed up. Mist was rising, the world silent, sunlight breaking through the canopy of trees. It seemed a miracle when suddenly they were in a clearing, Smudge's truck straight ahead on the muddy road.
It was important that Pigeon venture out at dawn to avoid the thunder of rush hour, and more important, to forage before Dumpsters were emptied behind restaurants that would not open for hours.
Often he discovered unexpected treasures such as money, jewelry and doggie bags that drunk people dropped on their way back to their cars. Once he found a Rolex watch and got enough money from the pawn shop to keep him happy for months. He had found a number of portable phones, calculators and pagers, and an occasional gun.
'You can stay here if you want,' Pigeon said to Weed.
Weed was sitting on the blanket and didn't know what to do. In daylight, his predicament seemed even worse, maybe because it was harder to hide when the sun was looking him in the eye.
'There's got to be places the devil won't go,' Pigeon said.
Weed gave it some thought.
'I guess he wouldn't go back to the cement-tary,' Weed decided.
Pigeon got an idea.
'People ever leave good stuff on the graves? Like the dead person's favorite food, whiskey, wine, cigars, sort of like they used to do in the Pyramids?'
'It was dark when I was in there,' Weed told him. 'I didn't see nothing 'cept those little flags you see everywhere. But it's a big place.'
The world was no longer big enough to accommodate traffic, and this was fortunate for Officer Otis Rhoad. It was almost seven-thirty and rush hour was out of the gate.