A Death On The Wolf (24 page)

“
Nels?” Frankie said.

“
Hmm?”

“
I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

I was surprised at Frankie’s use of the F-word. It was always there in our respective arsenals of profanity, but we rarely pulled it out and used it. “What’d you let him do to you?” I asked. I didn’t really want to know, but the question just came out anyway.

“
I don’t want to talk about it.”

“
What’d he want to do that made you tell him you would call the cops?”

“
Didn’t you hear me say I don’t want to talk about it?”

“
Yeah, sorry.”

“
That’s okay,” Frankie said. “Thanks for coming to get me. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d said no.”

I turned to Frankie, but in the darkness I could not see his face. “There’s no way I would have not come and got you, man.”

I felt Frankie moving his hand under the sheet until he found mine beside him. He grasped it and squeezed. “Still best friends?” he asked, his voice breaking as he started to cry.

I squeezed his hand back. “Still best friends,” I affirmed.

I fell asleep that night with my best friend holding my hand and crying beside me.

Chapter 15

Jackson

I awoke to the early morning sun streaming in my window. Frankie was right up against me with his arm around me and I could feel him breathing on my neck. I lifted his arm and moved it off me and then sat up in the bed. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and thought about what had happened last night, wishing it had just been a bad dream, but knowing it wasn’t. It was all too real, and Frankie sleeping in the bed beside me confirmed it.

As I threw back the sheet and put my feet on the floor, Frankie stirred and then rolled on his side facing the wall. I got up and dressed quietly and then went down the hall and peeked in my sister’s room. Her bed was still empty, so I looked in Daddy’s room. She was asleep in his bed. I went to the bathroom and found a note there from him taped to the mirror along with a ten dollar bill:

Nelson, Be careful today and remember what I told you about traffic in Jackson. Take Frankie with you. I don’t want him around his dad until he’s talked to the sheriff. Give him this $10 so he’ll have his own money and won’t have to ask you if wants to buy something. Love, Dad.

I was surprised that Daddy wanted me to take Frankie, and not a little disappointed. Despite the reason we were going to Jackson, I was looking forward to it just being Mary Alice and me taking the trip. I tore the note off the mirror and put the ten dollars in my wallet.

I finished up in the bathroom then went down to the kitchen and poured me a glass of orange juice. Daddy had left the morning paper on the table so I turned back to the funny pages as I sipped the juice, which tasted bitter because of the lingering toothpaste in my mouth. It was half past six and I knew Aunt Charity would be coming over any minute to fix breakfast. I wanted to get on the road to Jackson by eight, so I hoped Mary Alice was up and getting ready.

I had just taken another sip of juice when the most bloodcurdling scream came from down the hall. It was Sachet. I jumped up and ran down the hall past my room and looked in Daddy’s room. Nothing. “Nelson!” my sister called and I stepped back and looked in my room. Sachet was on my bed on all fours looking at Frankie. He was sitting up with a confused look on his face. I knew what had happened. My sister had waked up and come to my room to get in bed with me, only to find Frankie instead. It must have startled her, and clearly her scream had scared poor Frankie half to death.

“
It’s just Frankie,” I said. I went over and sat down on the bed. She crawled in my lap and put her head under my chin. “You okay?” I asked her. She nodded her head and rubbed her eyes. “Go in the bathroom and wash your face and brush your teeth. Aunt Charity will be over here in a minute to fix breakfast.”

“
Okay,” Sachet said. She slid off my lap and scurried off to the bathroom.

I turned around and looked at Frankie. “What about you? Are you okay?”

Frankie blinked several times like he was trying to focus on me. “No,” he said. “My head feels like it’s gonna explode.”

“
How much did you drink last night?”

“
I don’t remember.”

“
Do you remember how sick you were?”

“
Yeah,” he said, reaching up to rub his eyes. “I’m never gonna drink again as long as I live. I’d rather die than be that sick. I learned my lesson.”

“
Did you learn another lesson?”

“
What do you mean?”

“
You don’t go off with a pervert on a motorcycle.”

“
Yeah,” Frankie said with a slight smile. “I learned that lesson, too. I guess that means I won’t be riding with you on your Honda anymore.” He laughed and poked me in the back.

“
It’s not funny, Frankie. I’m serious. He could have killed you.”

“
I know,” Frankie said, his levity passing. “Is your dad still here?”

“
Nope. He leaves for work about five. He left me a note and said to take you with me and Mary Alice to Jackson.”

“
Why?”

“
I don’t know,” I lied. Since Frankie hadn’t seen Daddy’s note, I didn’t see any reason to bring up the issue of his father and the sheriff.

“
Why are you going to Jackson?” Frankie asked.

“
It’s got something to do with Mary Alice’s brother,” I said. “I’ll let her tell you about it. Go on and get dressed. I want to leave right after breakfast.”

“
What am I gonna wear? I don’t have any clothes.”

I told Frankie to wear the Bermuda shorts I’d brought him last night. I got him one of my Izod polo shirts out of the closet and some socks and underwear from my dresser. When he asked me about shoes and stuck his freshly socked feet up in the air I went back over to the closet and got him an older pair of my sneakers that would have eventually found their way to the Masonic Home in Poplarville. My feet were bigger than Frankie’s, but I was glad to see these old shoes fit him. Just as he finished dressing, we heard Aunt Charity calling my name from the kitchen.

“
There’s Aunt Charity,” I said. “Hurry up in the bathroom so we can eat breakfast and hit the road.”

— — —

“
Is somebody gonna tell me why we’re going to Jackson?” Frankie said loudly over the wind noise. Like yesterday, he was sprawled across the back seat of my car, leaning against the passenger side armrest, the humid morning air blowing his dark hair through his open window. After eating a huge breakfast, he seemed strangely back to normal after his drunken sexual escapade last night with the man in black, not to mention being attacked by his father. I couldn’t help but think it was just a front and I wondered how long he would be able to maintain it.

It was twenty past eight and we’d just left Dick’s ESSO and were headed out of town on 53 at a steady 50 miles per hour. I had a full tank of gas and a map of Mississippi with the entire route to Jackson highlighted in yellow. I was nervous and excited about the long drive ahead and the only part I was even remotely apprehensive about was navigating downtown Jackson and trying to find the law office where Beau Hadley was clerking. Mary Alice was holding my hand across the center console and for one brief moment before Frankie asked that question, I had forgotten about why we were going and why my best friend was in the backseat with us.

“
Hello?” Frankie said. “Is somebody gonna answer me? Why are we going to Jackson?”

“
Do you care if I tell him?” I asked Mary Alice.

She released my hand and opened the small pink purse in her lap. From it she took the envelope containing her brother’s letter. “Let him read it,” she said and held the envelope over to me.

I took the envelope and held it back to Frankie. “Read this,” I said to him.

When Frankie finished reading the letter, he leaned up between the front bucket seats and held out the envelope. “I liked your brother when I met him, Mary Alice,” he said, “but now I think he’s an idiot.” I smiled and put the envelope in Mary Alice’s hand. Leave it to Frankie to put into words what I’d been thinking ever since I read it. “If we’re going to Jackson so you can beat him up,” Frankie added, punching me in the arm, “I’ll help you.”

I laughed. “I’m not going to Jackson to get in a fight,” I said.

“
So why are you going, then?”

“
Mary Alice wants to talk to him about that letter.”

Frankie puffed and resumed his recline in the back seat. “Let me talk to him,” he said. “I’ll set him straight.”

“
And what would you say to my brother, Frankie—after you beat him up?” Mary Alice asked with a giggle. I looked over at her, at the wind tossing her hair, at how her face seemed to glow in the soft morning light made shadowless by the patches of fog we were encountering at regular intervals along the way.

Frankie was back up between the front seat backs. “I’d tell him he doesn’t know how lucky his sister is to have met my best friend. I’d tell him he ought to be thankful Nelson Gody is your boyfriend.”

Mary Alice was squeezing my hand and I glanced over to see a satisfied smile on her face.

We got to Jackson around 11:40, having only stopped once for a restroom break outside of Hattiesburg. While we were at that service station, Frankie asked me to buy him a Coke, and I remembered what my father had told me about giving Frankie $10 so he would not have to ask me for money. I gave him the ten dollar bill out of my wallet and when he came back with a Coke and a Slim Jim, he tried to hand me the change. I told him to keep it in case he wanted to get something else while we were in Jackson. Frankie told me he’d pay me back. I smiled because I knew he wouldn’t; he’d never paid me back in his life.

Traffic was pretty heavy in Hattiesburg, but it was nothing compared to what we encountered in downtown Jackson as the noon hour approached. I’d been to Jackson before, but that was with Daddy driving and I didn’t pay any attention then to cars, trucks, buses, and people, which were everywhere today. For the first time since we left that morning I was wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. That feeling intensified when we finally made it onto Capitol Street, lined down both sides with its tall buildings intimidating me every inch of the way as I searched for a place to park. The address Mary Alice had for Beau’s law firm was about two blocks from the old capitol building, and all the parking on Capitol was parallel—the one portion of my driving test I’d not done well on—and all the spaces appeared to be taken.

“
There’s an empty one!” Frankie yelled. He pointed up ahead. “That car’s pulling out.”

An old Buick was leaving a space right in front of the Paramount Theater. I checked my rear view mirror and the car behind us was quite a ways back so I pulled up to the empty space, mentally crossed my fingers, and started the backing maneuver to get the car into the space. I only had to make one stop and correction before I got us into the slot perfectly and I breathed an audible sigh of relief when it was done.

We got out and Frankie said, “Gotta pay for parking here.” He pointed to the meter standing watch beside the right front fender of my GT Hawk. I reached in my pocket but Frankie said, “I got it.” He went over and stuffed a dime in the meter and turned the handle. “An hour?” he said, looking over at me.

“
Put another dime in,” I said. “I don’t want to get a ticket.”

Frankie fed the meter another dime while I helped Mary Alice out of the car. She had her walking stick with her and she unfolded it. She opened her purse and handed me the piece of paper Aunt Charity had written the address on.

“
I think you should lock your car, man,” Frankie said. “We’re not in Bells Ferry.” He waved his arm at the hustle and bustle of people passing by us on the sidewalk.

I looked back at the car sitting there with all four windows rolled down. “Yeah,” I concurred. I rolled the windows up, made sure the keys were in my pocket, and then locked the doors. With Mary Alice on my arm and her walking stick tapping in front of us, we made our way up Capitol Street to her brother’s law office.

“
It’s hot,” Frankie announced, as if we didn’t already know it. It was well over 90 degrees, the humidity was high, and there was next to no breeze. The drive up hadn’t been too bad at highway speed with the windows down and the floor vents open. I’d often heard Daddy refer to Jackson as the hottest place in the state, and I could see why. We hadn’t gone half a block and I was sweating profusely.

“
I guess this is it,” I said when we got to the four-story red brick building that stood almost directly across the street from the towering Deposit Guaranty building. The brass placard affixed to the wall by the front door read

Prosser, Wallace, Shane & Thompson

Attorneys at Law