The part that she didn’t understand, though, was the business about her father actually paying Harold. For as long as Bessie had known him, her father had been a miserly skinflint who paid his employees not one penny more than he had to and doled out the housekeeping allowance as if it were the crown jewels. She just couldn’t imagine that he would offer a large amount of money to anybody, for any purpose, under any conditions. And how much would it have taken to tempt Harold to leave Darling and go into what amounted to a lifelong exile? Fifty dollars? A hundred? Five hundred? A thousand?
The late afternoon breeze lifted the willow leaves over her head and Bessie sighed, remembering Harold’s gentle smile, his beckoning glance, his young man’s eager hunger for her young woman’s willing body. She shook her head in disbelief. Miss Hamer was right. Harold had been proud and stubborn-and passionate. Bessie couldn’t imagine that he would willingly abandon her-the girl she had been then-for anything less than a king’s ransom. And she certainly couldn’t imagine her scrooge of a father forking over more than a few dollars for what was at bottom an uncertainty. There wouldn’t have been anything to keep Harold from taking the money, leaving for a few days, and then coming back.
A blue dragonfly, its transparent wings quivering, dropped onto a blade of grass at Bessie’s feet and she sat very still, watching it. Her father had been a volatile, temperamental man who was given to explosive outbursts. If Harold had refused his offer, had stood up to him and announced that he and Bessie were getting their rings and meant to be married whether he wanted to or not, he might have-
“Bessie!” It was Maxine, shouting from the back screen door. “What have you got in the oven? Smells like it might be scorching!”
Bessie jumped up and flew into the kitchen. After she rescued her crust and added the lemon filling, Leticia and Roseanne came in to start supper. They planned to eat early, because Leticia, Maxine, and Mrs. Sedalius were all going to a baby shower for Maxine’s granddaughter. Then Miss Rogers came in, asking Bessie’s advice on a dress pattern she was sewing. There was so much commotion that she could not pursue the unbearably ugly thought she had broken off when the cookies began to scorch.
It was just as well.
She didn’t want to think it. She didn’t dare.
The Dahlias’ Monday evening card party-they almost always played hearts-was open to all the club members, but only seven or eight usually came. Voleen Johnson, Miss Rogers, and several others never played cards, while Aunt Hetty Little played only poker. Mildred Kilgore often played hearts, but she had phoned to say that she and Mr. Kilgore had been asked out to supper at the country club. Alice Ann Walker and Lucy Murphy, also regulars at the card party, had gone to a meeting of the quilting club. Myra May had to work the switchboard. So it would be just one table of four: Bessie, Verna, Lizzy, and Ophelia. And since the Magnolia Ladies were all otherwise occupied tonight, they could set up their game in the parlor.
It was beginning to get dark and Bessie-still resolutely refusing to think that dreadful thought about her father and Harold-turned on the porch light. Then she put a pitcher of iced tea and a china plate filled with lemon chess squares, along with glasses, dessert plates, forks, and napkins, on the cherry sideboard. She was getting out the deck of cards and paper and pencil for scoring when she heard a knock at the door and opened it to Liz and Verna. The three of them were just sitting down at the card table when the telephone rang. It was Ophelia, regretting that she couldn’t come because her daughter had a fever and her husband had to go to a town council meeting.
“So it will be just us three,” Bessie said, and took out the two of diamonds, so that the deck had just fifty-one cards. “I always think it’s more fun to play with four, but-”
“Actually,” Verna said, with a glance at Liz, “it’s just as well that Ophelia isn’t here. I don’t know how much playing we’re going to get done tonight.”
“Oh?” Bessie asked, shuffling the cards. The hostess always dealt the first hand. “Let’s see, now. Since it’s just the three of us, we each get seventeen cards. Isn’t that right? And pass three instead of four?” She started to deal, then paused and looked at Verna. “Why aren’t we going to get much playing done tonight?”
“Because there might be a ruckus across the street,” Liz said. “Along about dark, maybe.” She glanced at Bessie. “Would it be okay if I opened the parlor window? We want to be able to hear.”
“Maybe we’d better tell Bessie what this is all about,” Verna said. “So she won’t be surprised.”
Bessie put down the cards. “Okay,” she said expectantly. “What’s it about?”
“Frankie Diamond,” Liz and Verna said, practically in unison.
Bessie raised her eyebrows. “What about him? He’s on the train back to Chicago, isn’t he?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Verna said. “We think maybe not.”
“We figure he’s not like the government revenue agents who let themselves be pushed around,” Liz said.
“He’s tough,” Verna said grimly. “He’s used to slugging it out with those Chicagoland gangsters. We think he might’ve jumped the train and come back. And if he was listening to Leona Ruth, he may know where to find the women. But it’s likely to be tonight. He won’t want to hang around here and risk getting collared again.”
“Oh, dear! And I told Miss Jamison that she didn’t need to worry!” Bessie reported what she had said, lamenting, “Now she’ll let her guard down!”
“No, she won’t,” Liz comforted her. “Sally-Lou is over there, paying a little visit to her auntie DessaRae. She’ll-”
“Hush,” Verna said, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. “I think I hear something. Bessie, let’s turn out the lights and go out on the porch. But we need to be quiet. It might not be happening just yet.”
“What might not be happening?” Bessie asked.
“You’ll see,” Liz said.
Bessie flicked the light switch and, moving silently, the three of them went out onto the porch. The night air, still warm from the heat of the day, was rich with the sound of cicadas and tree frogs. The moon had not yet risen and the sky was nearly full dark, the street darker yet under the overhanging trees. There were lights in the neighbors’ parlors and kitchens, and one house had a porch light. Across the street, Miss Hamer’s house spilled a block of light from the kitchen window, and there was a dimmer light upstairs.
They all stood quietly for a little while, for three minutes, maybe four. Bessie was just about to suggest that they go back inside and play a hand or two while they waited, when she saw a hunched-over shadow, heavy and bulky, moving slowly, creeping along the side of the house near the kitchen window. The shadow wore a hat.
She gasped and grabbed Verna’s arm. “Look there!” she squeaked. “It’s… it’s-him!”
“Bessie’s right, Verna,” Liz said excitedly. “Shouldn’t we go over there? What if Miss Jamison is in the kitchen, and he manages to get a shot through the window before-”
“Hang on a sec,” Verna said in a low voice. “Leave it to-”
Suddenly there was a shrill whistle. “Drop the gun, Diamond!” Buddy Norris shouted from behind the oak tree in Miss Hamer’s yard. “Hands against the wall! Now!” A glaring light spotlighted the shadowed figure and it froze, arm extended. Bessie could see that Frankie Diamond was holding a gun.
“Drop it, I said!” Buddy Norris shouted, but the figure didn’t move.
And then from inside the house came a sudden loud clanging, somebody banging on a big metal pot with a metal spoon-several somebodies, several pots, louder and faster, faster and louder, strangely syncopated. Then to this accompaniment they heard a wild, weird, wordless, otherworldly wailing that Bessie recognized from old African slave songs, passionate reverberations at the gates of the underworld. And then Miss Hamer’s shrill screeches split the air in a bloodcurdling, bone-shivering, banshee crescendo. It was, unmistakably, a Rebel yell.