Fannie shook her head and shrugged. She plucked at her pink top with the tips of her taloned fingers. “Boy, it’s hot.”
“Are you listening?”
She stopped plucking and placed the cards back into the pack. She looked over the table at Arch and said: “Next year, they’ll be just a memory.”
“I don’t have till fucking next year,” Arch said, pointing at Fannie with the end of his cigarette. “They’re gunning for me. This crazy Guard general and this man Sykes. They want to make a statement. They will remove me from office and they want me for Pat’s murder. They need someone and they want me. They’re gonna fuck this scapegoat silly.”
Elbows in all four corners of the table had worn the green top white. Fannie ran her hand over the smooth spots, keeping the little brown cigar in the corner of her mouth. She pulled it out, examined the tip, and then tucked it back into her molars like a man.
“Tell me this,” she said. “Where were you?”
“When?”
“When Patterson was killed.”
“You know where I was.”
“Hell, I know. Talking to Silas Garrett on the telephone at the exact fucking minute the trigger was pulled. Damn convenient, Arch.”
“I wouldn’t doubt Si Garrett’s word if I were you.” Arch’s hand found a spot on the table, his smooth, worn place, and rubbed it, working his fingers in and out of the bleached color, studying the design like an ancient map. “He’s a fine man. What about you, Fannie?”
Fannie pulled the cigar from her red lips and just stared at him, reeking of perfume.
“People say someone hired a button man from out of state. Chicago. Las Vegas. Or Miami. Don’t you have a place down in Miami?”
She leaned back into the creaking chair, studied Arch’s face, and set her feet on top of the table. She unbuttoned a single button and used the material of her shirt to fan herself, giving Arch a better view of the black lace.
Arch wiped his brow and returned the stare. Fannie Belle laughed. The red light was giving him a headache, making him feel like they were underwater.
“People are talking,” Arch said. “People are lying. These men, these men who don’t know and understand Phenix City, are listening. They don’t care about what’s true. People look at me different. They stare. Niggers on the street look at me like I’m some kind of joke. They used to get off the goddamn sidewalk and let me pass.”
Her cigar smoke floated up and burned into the low light of the single bulb. She shook her head and looked at Arch. “Since when do you care what niggers think?”
Arch stood and began to pace. He had sweated deep into his dress shirt and his back felt wet. “Did I tell you my wife is seven months pregnant? We need control.”
“You don’t need to tell me what we need,” she said. “Everyone is squirming and squealing like a nest of rats.”
She stopped his pacing cold with a quick motion of her left hand holding him between his legs. Arch looked at her and blinked several times as if trying to right his vision.
“Hoyt and Jimmie have grown fat and lazy and are useless in this war,” Arch said. “I’ve heard they’ve thrown in the towel and gone with Pat’s son.”
“War?” she said, still holding him at his crotch. “Goddamn. All the Guard can do is walk the streets and pose for pictures. Have you seen one clip joint shut down? Get yourself together, Arch, and go take a fucking bath. I’m handling this now.”
“You need help.”
She kneaded him with one hand and pulled the cigar from her mouth with the other. She held him tight in her grip, and, as she smoked, Arch tilted his head, amazed at the way she could take care of two things with such little effort.
“I’ve got help.”
“Fuller ain’t enough,” Arch said.
She unzipped his fly and reached in and touched him through his drawers. Arch closed his eyes. But just as quickly, she let go and pulled the cigar from her mouth and crushed it into the ashtray. She stood and put her hand on Arch’s shoulder.
The cigar smoldered in the cut glass.
“I’m not talkin’ about Fuller,” Fannie said, a smile slicing up to her pointed ears in the red light. “I’m talking about sending a mess of messages Western Union. You understand, don’t you? I know you do, Arch. Because you’re a goddamn American hero.”
BERT FULLER PUNCHED ON HIS HEADLIGHTS WHEN THEY hit Crawford Road, and they drove away from Phenix City and out toward Seale and into the country. Reuben reclined in the patrol car’s seat while Fuller made some calls on his radio to the sheriff’s office and then hung up the microphone.
“Where we headed?” Reuben asked, arm hanging out the window. The wind seemed hotter than the air when they were parked.
“Cliff’s.”
“I don’t want to go to Cliff’s.”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
They passed groupings of ragged shanties on eroded pieces of land and long stretches of cotton just planted. A few of the farmers had roadside stands that were closed up for the night but still advertised with hand-painted signs for corn, field peas, squash, and boiled peanuts, even though corn and peas wouldn’t be in for some time.
Reuben reached under his seat for the bottle of the homemade liquor Fuller had brought along and, after taking a long pull, passed it on to the assistant sheriff. Fuller smacked his lips and said: “That could peel the paint on a barn door.”
“Or make you blind.”
“Pussy will make you blind, too.”
“I’m worn out.”
“Naw, you ain’t,” Fuller said, slowing and turning down an unmarked dirt road and under a tunnel of pecans growing along a slatted fence. They passed a burned-out car and another stretch of plowed-under land and then took another turn, the headlights cutting through the darkness on a moonless night like going into a long, endless cave.
“You know what ole Hank used to say about the moon.”
“What’s that?”
“Said the moon was hiding on account of its sadness. How’d that man think of that?”
“He was a drunk.”
“He was one of the best friends I ever had and the best goddamn singer that ever came out of the state of Alabama,” Reuben said when Fuller stopped the car and turned off the ignition, the words coming out louder in the quiet than he’d intended than over the motor.
“When did you meet him?”
“After the war, when I got home. He’d just been fired off WSFA and needed someone to drive him. Keep him sober for singin’ at all them roadhouses.”
“And they hired you.”
“His mamma did.”
“Well, his mamma didn’t have sense at all.”
“He could write songs from picking the words out of the air.”
They followed a path to an old unpainted house situated next to a small, two-acre pond. Reuben turned up the liquor, damn near finishing the bottle, and watched as the moon reappeared from outside a cloud just like Hank had always said. A broken-slatted pier walked out into the water maybe six feet.
“I want you to listen to me,” Bert Fuller said. Tonight, he’d dressed in blue jeans and his usual boots with a white snap-button shirt and matching hat. If he didn’t know better, Bert Fuller sure looked like one of the good guys. And Reuben smiled at the thought.
“What are you laughing at?”
A bass flopped to catch a bug in the pond. Reuben turned to look at it.
“Listen,” Fuller said. “Cliff’s done got him this Mexican gal that you won’t believe. I know you was always sayin’ how you like those little Filipino women. The Mexes ain’t a hell of a lot different. All that talk about their pussies smellin’ like tacos is a bunch of trash. This gal has golden skin and big old brown eyes, titties the size of watermelons. Man, I just could bury my pecker between them.”