“Who are they?” he asked.
“This is the investigator I spoke to at the hotel, the one hired by Elliot Norton to get Marianne’s nigger murderer off the hook,” stammered Earl Jr.
“Is that true?” asked the older man.
I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth.
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe that Atys Jones killed your daughter, but I will find out who did.”
“It’s not your business.”
“Atys is dead. So are the people who gave him sanctuary in their home. You’re right: finding out what happened isn’t my business. It’s more than that. It’s my moral obligation.”
“I would advise you to take your moral obligations elsewhere, sir. This one will lead you to ruin.” He turned to his son. “Have them escorted off my property.”
Earl Jr. looked to Kittim. The decision was clearly his to make.
After a pause to assert his authority, Kittim nodded to his men and they moved forward, their guns held discreetly by their sides so as not to alarm the guests when we left the house.
“And, Mr. Kittim,” added Earl Sr.
Kittim turned to look at him.
“In future, conduct your beatings elsewhere. This is my house and you are not a member of my staff.”
He shot a final harsh look at his son, then went out onto the lawn to rejoin his guests.
We were placed at the center of a circle of men and escorted to the car. Our weapons were placed in the trunk, minus their ammunition. Kittim leaned on the driver’s side window as I prepared to drive away. The smell of burning was so strong that I almost gagged again.
“Next time I see you will be the last,” he said. “Now take your porch monkey and get out of here.” He winked at Louis, then he patted the roof of the car and watched us drive away.
I touched my temple where Kittim’s punch had landed, and winced at the contact.
“You okay to drive?” asked Louis.
“I think so.”
“Looked like Kittim was makin’ himself at home back there.”
“He’s there because Bowen wants him there.”
“Means Bowen got something on the Larousses, if his boy has the run of the house.”
“He called you a bad name.”
“I heard.”
“You seem to be taking it pretty calmly, all things considered.”
“Wasn’t worth dyin’ over. Least, not worth my dyin’ over. Kittim’s another matter. Like the man said, we be seein’ him again. It’ll wait.”
“You think you can stay with him?”
“Sure. Where you goin’?”
“To get a history lesson. I’m tired of being nice to people.”
Louis looked mildly surprised.
“Just how exactly you been definin’ ‘nice’ up to now?”
22
THERE WAS A message waiting for me when I got back to my hotel. It was from Phil Poveda. He wanted me to call him. He didn’t sound panicked, or fearful. In fact, I thought I detected a note of relief in his voice. First, though, I called Rachel. Bruce Taylor, one of the patrolmen out of Scarborough, was in the kitchen when she answered, drinking coffee and eating a cookie. It made me feel better knowing that the cops were dropping by as MacArthur had promised and that somewhere the Klan Killer was being intolerant of lactose, among other things.
“Wallace has been by a few times as well,” said Rachel.
“How is Mr. Lonelyheart?”
“He went shopping in Freeport. He bought himself a couple of jackets in Ralph’s, some new shirts and ties. He’s a work in progress, but there’s potential there. And Mary really seems to be his type.”
“Desperate?”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘easygoing.’ Now go away. I have an attractive man in uniform to take care of.”
I hung up and dialed Phil Poveda’s number.
“It’s Parker,” I said, when he picked up the phone.
“Hey,” he replied. “Thanks for calling.” He sounded upbeat, almost cheerful. This was a far cry from the Phil Poveda who had threatened me with a gun two days before. “I’ve just been putting my affairs in order. You know, wills and shit. I’m a pretty wealthy man, I just never knew it. Admittedly, I’ll have to die to capitalize on it, but that’s cool.”
“Mr. Poveda, are you feeling okay?” It was kind of a redundant question. Phil Poveda appeared to be feeling better than okay. Unfortunately, I figured Phil Poveda felt that way because his sanity was falling down around his ears.
“Yeah,” he said, and for the first time a twinge of doubt crept into his voice. “Yeah, I think so. You were right: Elliot’s dead. They found his car. It was on the news.”
I didn’t reply.
“Like you said, that leaves just me and Earl and, unlike Earl, I don’t have my daddy and my Nazi friends to protect me.”
“You mean Bowen.”
“Uh-huh, Bowen and that Aryan freak of his. But they won’t be able to protect him forever. Someday, he’ll find himself alone, and then…”
He let himself trail off before resuming.
“I just want it all to be over.”
“You want what to be over?”
“Everything: the killing, the guilt. Hell, the guilt most of all. You got time, we can talk about it. I got time. Not much, though, not much. Time’s running out for me. Time’s running out for all of us.”
I told him I’d be right over. I also wanted to tell him to stay away from the medicine cabinet and any sharp objects, but by then the glimmer of sanity that had briefly shone through had been swallowed up by the dark clouds in his brain. He just said “Cool!” and put down the phone.
I packed my bags and checked out of the hotel. Whatever happened next, I wouldn’t be back in Charleston for a while.
Phil Poveda answered his door wearing shorts, deck shoes, and a white T-shirt depicting Jesus Christ pulling back his robes to reveal the thorn-enclosed heart within.
“Jesus is my savior,” explained Phil. “Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded of that fact. He is ready to forgive me.”
Poveda’s pupils had shrunk to the size of pinheads. Whatever he was on was strong stuff. You could have given it to the folks on the Titanic and watched them descend beneath the waves with beatific smiles on their faces. He shepherded me into his neat oak kitchen and made decaf coffee for both of us. For the next hour, his coffee sat untouched beside him. Pretty soon, I’d laid mine aside as well.
After hearing Phil Poveda’s tale, I didn’t think I’d ever want to eat or drink again.
The bar, Obee’s, is gone now. It was a roadhouse dive off Bluff Road, a place where clean-cut college boys could get five-dollar blow jobs from poor blacks and poorer whites out among the trees that descended in dark concave down to the banks of the Congaree, then return to their buddies, high-fiving and grinning, while the women washed their mouths out from the tap in the yard. But close to where it once stood is a new structure: the Swamp Rat, where Atys Jones and Marianne Larousse spent their last hours together before her death.
The Jones sisters used to drink in Obee’s, though one of them, Addy, was barely seventeen and the older sister, Melia, by a quirk of nature, looked younger still. By then, Addy had already given birth to her son, Atys: the fruit, it appeared, of an ill-fated liaison with one of her momma’s passing boyfriends, the late Davis “Boot” Smoot, a liaison that might have been classified as rape had she seen fit to report it. So Addy had begun to raise the boy with her grandma, for her mother couldn’t bear to look at her. Pretty soon, she wouldn’t be there for her mother to ignore, for on this night all traces of Addy and her sister were about to be erased from this earth.
They were drunk and swaying slightly as they emerged from the bar, a chorus of whistles and catcalls sending them on their way, a boozy wind in their sails. Addy tripped and landed on her ass, and her sister doubled over with laughter. She hauled the younger girl up, her skirt rising to reveal her nakedness, and as they stood swaying they saw the young men packed into the car, the ones in the back climbing over one another to catch a glimpse. Embarrassed and not a little afraid, even in their drunkenness, the laughter of the young women faded and they aimed for the road, their heads down.