Most of the Mississippi River valley below Memphis had been wiped out by the great flood of 1927. In rebuilding, a lot of towns turned their backs on the river, fortifying themselves behind the levees. Some of them simply picked up and moved away from the water altogether.
Longstreet hadn't been hurt as badly as other places. The residential heart of Longstreet was on naturally high ground. When the flood came, it took out the first couple of blocks of the business and warehouse districts along the river, but most of the town stayed dry. As a result, the rebuilt business district was a collection of redbrick thirties and forties architecture, backed up by a residential area that was much older.
The town square, Chickamauga Park, was on the first major terrace up from the river, at the center of the business district. Two blocks beyond that, the business buildings started shading into the white residential neighborhoods. The white neighborhoods went on up the rising ground, across the crest to the railroad tracks. The black neighborhoods were on the far side of the tracks.
We didn't get that far. We took our time strolling up the ridge, getting acquainted with the town. It was hot but not yet unpleasant. The mix of river odors and flower perfume was as rich and interesting, in its own way, as new-mown hay.
"Uh, by the way, what's your name today? Your last name?" I asked.
Across the street, a heavyset woman in a sun-bonnet was tilling a garden with an ancient Case lawn tractor.
"Case," LuEllen said, watching the woman in her beans. "LuEllen Case, okay?"
"Sure," I said. "And thank Christ she wasn't driving an International Harvester."
The restaurant where the mayor ate lunch was a ferns-and-antique-bricks place called Humdinger's, down the block from the City Hall. Most of the local movers and shakers would be there between eleven-thirty and one o'clock. I knew the mayor's face from political advertisements Marvel had sent us, and LuEllen had seen her on the street during her scouting trip. Her face fixed on us as we crossed the street toward the restaurant.
"There she is, like Harold said," LuEllen murmured.
"I see her. Ballem's with her," I said. I took LuEllen's elbow in my hand as we crossed the street. "There's an open booth just before theirs. That's the one we'll take. You sit closest to the door, so you're facing her. Let her get a look at that crystal."
"I'm cool," she said. I glanced at her, and her face looked dewy from the heat and humidity, but otherwise serene.
"You didn't put any of that shit up your nose, did you?"
A flash of irritation crossed her face. "That's only for hard targets," she said.
"Just checking."
"You're not my father."
"No, but-"
"But what?"
"Nothing."
Humdinger's had creaky wooden floors and rough brick walls and framed reproductions of English sporting prints, a place that strained for sophistication without quite making it. The general lunch hour buzz dimmed noticeably when we stepped inside, heads turning in our direction. There was a sign near the cash register, please wait to be seated. The waitress who came to seat us took a good look at LuEllen, a shorter one at me, decided LuEllen was in charge, and said to her, "This way please."
We were headed toward the windows, but just to make sure, LuEllen touched the woman on the arm and said, "I wonder if we could have that window booth."
"That's where I was taking you, honey," the waitress said.
I sat in the booth with my back to Dessusdelit, so she could see LuEllen. Even without the sundress, the uplift bra, and the breast exposure, the crystal would have been hard to miss. The light flickering off it made it seem alive.
"She sees it," LuEllen said in a low voice, around the menu.
LuEllen ordered a chicken breast salad, and I had an open-face hot beef sandwich, which arrived swimming in brown gravy. We talked about painting locations in town, LuEllen worried about the cholesterol in my lunch, and we both tried unsuccessfully to eavesdrop on the booth behind me. I was just finishing the sandwich when I felt the mayor and Ballem slide out of their booth. LuEllen winked.
"I don't mean to interrupt," the mayor said, pausing by our table. She was looking at LuEllen. Ballem walked on a few steps before he stopped and turned. "That is a beautiful crystal."
"Why, thank you," LuEllen said sweetly. "It's a Herkimer diamond. My great-great-grandmother found it near her farm in upstate New York. It's sort of our family channel-"
"Oh, you're interested" Dessusdelit said with enthusiasm. She had a narrow, sallow face framed by a short, dark, thoroughly lacquered hairdo. The bags under her pale eyes seemed fairly new, as though she hadn't slept for a couple of nights. A chain of braided gold, like LuEllen's but thinner, hung around her neck. She fished it out. "I have one of my own."
Her crystal was bigger than LuEllen's but not quite as clear. And while LuEllen's was double-ended, the mayor's had a rough cleavage at the bottom, where the crystal had been broken off its base.
"From Mount Ida," she said.
"Oh, sure," LuEllen said knowledgeably. "They're famous. Did you collect it yourself, or-"
"Yes, yes, I bothered Ralph, that's my late husband, I said to Ralph, 'Ralph, I swear, if you don't take me, I just don't know what I'll do.' One day he said, 'Let's go, girl. Then maybe you'll leave me alone.' I looked at crystals until I thought my eyes would fall out. This one just sort of spoke to me, you know?"
"I know exactly, I know," LuEllen gushed. "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night just having to hold it. I can actually feel the spheres intersecting through my diamond. Have you ever tried using a ball?"
"Well, once, when this lady was coming through town, but I didn't see much. I mean, for a minute-"
Ballem was looking bored and impatient, but LuEllen ignored him. "Did you have a chance to warm it with your touch, or did you just look into it?"
"Well, I touched it, but mostly I just looked."
The conversation was getting serious now.
"You should try a ball again. You'll find it's different from the crystal, but sometimes it's. a lot better. Next time roll it in your hands for a while. You have to establish a resonance with the ball. and it has to be real. The more a ball's used, the more open it gets."
"I don't know if I could find, just offhand. they're expensive, the good ones."
"Well." LuEllen looked at me, as though for permission, "I have an antique ball down in our river yacht. You'd be welcome to come down and try. I mean, if you're really an enthusiast."
Dessusdelit looked from LuEllen to me, and her voice took on just an edge of wariness. We were moving too fast for the Old South. "Are you. staying in town?"
"We're down at the marina. You can see the big white river yacht down there. My name is LuEllen Case. Mr. Kidd's a painter, and he's here scouting landscapes. I'm just along. for the ride."
"So you're not from around here?" But her voice had warmed a notch. We had a large boat.
"No, no. Mr. Kidd has homes in St. Paul and New Orleans. We travel back and forth so he can work on his painting."
"Well, that sounds very nice." Dessusdelit had definitely warmed back up, though the wariness lingered. We were Yankees, after all, and apparently living in sin. Of course, I did have two houses and a yacht. "I'm Chenille Dessusdelit, and this is Archibald Ballem. I'm the mayor here, and Archie is the city attorney."
Ballem made a little scrape and bow. From a distance you might think he was sixty. Up close you realized he was probably ten years younger than that, but his face had a dissolute crepe-paper texture, and his nose had the swollen, big-pored quality of a heavy drinker. His eyes, small, sharp, and mean, dispelled any illusion that he was a dumb hick lawyer.