Now Let's Talk of Graves (41 page)

Billy Jack froze. He could hardly breathe. With one hand he scrabbled at his neck, loosening his collar suddenly grown too small.

Fuck! Fucking heebie-jeebies!

He sat right down in the middle of the floor and put his head between his knees.

He felt like he did that day out at the airport when Joey's great big nigger came charging at him, got too close, then he heard all those gunshots. He'd felt sick to his stomach—just like he did now. Why was Joey's nigger coming after him then, anyway? And why was he after him now? What did it mean? Did it have anything to do with Joey, or was it just some weird coincidence?

He had to breathe through his mouth.

That's what he had to remember to do.

Breathe through his mouth.

Think good thoughts.

Think of his mama holding him close, singing “Amazing Grace” in his ear. That was his favorite lullaby when he was a little kid.

There now.

There now.

All better.

Billy Jack slowly opened his eyes and raised his head. He focused and, pro that he was, zeroed right in on a bunch of old silver picture frames somebody had dumped into a cardboard box and left on the floor next to the thing that looked like a piano under its sheet. Like they'd been packing, got interrupted, or thought better of it. They were good, expensive silver frames.

He picked up one and looked at the little imprint on the back. He'd learned to do that. Tiffany & Co., it said.

Great! Silver was silver. Gold was gold. Everything didn't have to be fucking Rolexes.

Billy Jack dropped the frame onto the floor, picture side up.

Then the faces jumped up at him.

Son of a bitch!

Goddamn
son of a bitch!

There was Zoe when she was a little girl, standing on what looked like a front porch, lifting the skirt of a little white dress. She had great big eyes and cute little legs. She wasn't nearly so skinny then, was curtsying, sort of, playing around the way kids do, smiling like a sunbeam into the face of a man. Shit!
Look
at that
man.

Billy Jack grabbed up more frames from the box. There! Look there! And there again! That one looked like it was taken just last year. The man had never told Billy Jack he was Zoe's dad. But then, the man had never told him his name either.

No names. That was part of their deal. He'd do the man like the man asked him to, man wouldn't narc on him to his mama, wouldn't even breathe his mama's blessed name.

Thirty-Six

G.T. WAS IN high dudgeon, sprinkling Ma Elise's front parlor with Flying Devil powder, verbena oil, and Saint-John's-wort, whispering imprecations under her breath.

“Girl, come and sit down,” Aunt Ida fussed at her. “Watching you's got me plum wore out.” Right after a too-big lunch, she and Sam and Kitty and Zoe and Ma Elise were spread across the sofas and chairs like a pack of dead cats.

“Coffee,” said G.T. “You all need coffee.” She disappeared for a minute, then reappeared with the big carafe. “Now.” Pointing at Sam. “You called this Good Friday meeting. What you got?”

“I've got a mess. I've got all kinds of possibilities, but I don't know what to make of anything. What I need is help.” And then Sam began dealing out the players one at a time as if they were cards in a jumbled hand. First was the blind man, Cole Leander.

“You think we ought to believe him,” she asked Kitty, “when he says all's forgiven and forgotten? You don't think this is his way, dropping the suit, of his covering up something else? His conversion to the Lord notwithstanding?”

“
I
don't know.” Kitty shook her head.

Sam turned to Ma Elise. “You've known him forever. What do you think?”

“Cole always was a big bag of wind. Actually, men like that, I always felt kind of sorry for them. I'd say we could count him out.”

“Praise the Lord,” Kitty piped up from her chaise. “I just don't think I have the strength to deal with that malpractice business.”

“Which brings me to the question of Church's finances,” said Sam. And then she recounted all that Cissy had said, trying to soft-pedal the role of Zoe's debut and Carnival expenses.

But none of it was lost on Church's daughter. “Oh, my God,” the young girl moaned, her eyes dark holes in her too-pale face. “My God, my God. I never suspected any of that. I bet he was worried to death.” Then she bit her lip. “And God knows I could have helped him.”

“What do you mean?” Ma Elise asked.

“There was never any need for Daddy to worry about money. Just like I've been telling you there's no need for us to pursue the insurance. I said I'd be okay.” She took a deep breath, polling their faces. “Don't you understand what I'm saying? I'm rolling in cash. Don't you know
anything
about drug dealers?”

Sam nodded, Go on.

“Especially drug dealers with investment portfolios who take great pleasure, as I do, in watching the numbers grow. Totting up all those zeroes.”

“And what are the numbers, darling?” Ma Elise asked the question as if she were inquiring what Zoe would like for supper.

“About six million. Give or take a couple hundred thou each day depending on the market.”

“Sweet baby Jesus,” said Ida.

“Holy shit,” said Kitty. “Church would have been awfully proud of you.”

“Do you really think so?” Zoe's grin was unnerving. Sam had seen corpses with prettier rictus. “Think he would have been pleased knowing how his little girl made her fortune?”

Ma Elise moved over closer to Zoe on the sofa, put her thin old arms around her, gave her a big hug. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Hush.”

Sam shot Ma Elise a questioning look. Should she stop the questions here for a bit? The old lady snuggled Zoe closer and nodded to Sam to go on.

G.T. beat her to it. “The cops done anything more tracing that Buick?”

“You mean Blackstone and Shea, our brave men in blue?” Sam shrugged. “I checked this morning. They're both out of town. I figure either they've hit the jackpot, lying low with their info till they negotiate with the highest bidder, or they've gone fishing.”

“Looks of them, I'd say the latter,” said G.T. “How 'bout you?”

“I don't think they have zip,” Sam concurred. Then, “Now, G.T., did you know your friend Lavert Washington is working this case?”

“Whose friend?”

“Too quick, girl,” her great-grandmother snapped. “I saw that big old boy yesterday over to Kush's. Your name came up, he like to fainted. You know, I think he might be okay, even though his mama been talking trash about us for years. He's certainly a gentleman. Gave us a ride home, didn't he, Ma Elise?”

“He sure did.”

“He didn't tell me that,” said G.T.

“Ah-ha!” said Ida. “Tell you when?”

“I called him yesterday to tell him I saw that little white boy, the one who jumped out of my ambulance that time coming from the airport. Saw him when I was coming to pick you all up.”

“Why's Lavert care?” asked Ida.

G.T. flushed. “He seemed to want to help me find him.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

“Hush with your uh-huhing, old woman.”

“Uh-huh. Smoke there's fire's all I know.”

Sam couldn't wait to tell G.T. “Do you know who that is?”

“Who?”

“That boy from the airport?”

“Who?”

“Billy Jack Joyner.”

“What?” Zoe sat up.

“That's right,” Sam turned to her. “
Your
Billy Jack, last name Joyner, the same person G.T.'s been looking for—the one who jumped out of her ambulance, left her with a handful of paperwork.”

“What on earth?” Zoe said.

“What do you mean,
her
Billy Jack Joyner?” Kitty asked.

“My supplier,” said Zoe. “Where I got my coke.”

“Oh.” Kitty slumped back.

“And you know what?” Sam continued. “Harry and I discovered that your dad and Billy Jack had a drink together in the Pelican back several months ago.”

“What?” Zoe cried. “Daddy and Billy Jack? I can't believe that.”

Sam described the scenario as told to her by Calvin, the Pelican's barkeep, of Church and Billy Jack in the Pelican. “Doesn't it sound like that night you were telling me about? The night you said Church was mugged?”

“It
does.
But it doesn't make any sense. Why would he go for a drink with somebody who'd attacked him? And why on earth would Billy Jack mug
him
in the first place? And then why would Daddy come home and not mention
that
part?”

They all shook their heads.

“It must have been something else.
Somebody
else,” said Kitty. “That doesn't sound like Church.”

“Not even at his drunkest?” Sam asked, thinking of some stunts she'd pulled on the booze she wished she
didn't
remember.

“I can't imagine,” said Ma Elise.

“Who told you all this anyway? Where'd you hear this story?” asked Ida. “And what does it mean?”

“What I want to know is how Maynard Dupree fits into all this? Did he have something to do with Billy Jack mugging Church?” Sam looked at them all in turn as if any or all of them had the answers.

“What do you mean, Maynard Dupree? What on earth are you talking about?” asked Ma Elise.

So then Sam told the story once again of Harry and Chéri and Maynard and Jimbo in the Pelican the night before Mardi Gras.

“Oh, Lord,” said Ma Elise with a look on her face like she tasted something bad. “Maynard Dupree.”

“Yes,” said Sam, turning to her. “Maynard Dupree. You ladies weren't very helpful, you know, holding out about Maynard.”

Kitty and Ma Elise exchanged a look. Then Ma Elise's eyes slid over to Ida's.

“Don't look at me,” the old woman snapped. “I told you years ago you're doing the wrong thing there. I told you and I told you and you wouldn't listen.”

“What?” Zoe asked. Zoe searched all their faces. “What? What?”

“Now,” Ida said, her black eyes darting at Ma Elise, “you gonna tell her now?”

“What?” Zoe again.

“Oh, darlin',” said Ma Elise. “My little darlin' girl.”

And then it all came tumbling out, the sad and sordid tale of Church and Maynard and their rivalry over Madeline, how they'd both used her, why she'd run away. Ma Elise and Kitty and Ida told the story together, each taking turns. “No!” Zoe cried again and again. “No! No! No!”

“But they both loved you so,” said Ma Elise. “Both your mama and your daddy. Everything else was just—”

“Just their own madness,” Kitty offered. “Your daddy's and Maynard Dupree's. Fueled by Maynard's awful daddy and our mother and father's boozing—and well, it goes on and on, doesn't it, our obsessiveness with history and family, our skeletons, our—”

“But it was
my
family,” cried Zoe. “My life.”

“And it still is,” Sam said softly.

“What do you mean?” Zoe, who'd leapt to her feet, whirled, her curls wild and loose about her head. “They're both gone.”

“Kitty and Ma Elise are still
here.
And Ida. And your mother wants to come back. Not here”—Sam gestured around the room—“but to you. To see you. To get to know you.”

“She does, does she! Oh, really? How
nice
for her!” Zoe's arms flailed back and forth, and her mouth worked. She was on the edge of hysteria. “She wants to come back and see what she can pick from my daddy's bones?”

“Zoe!” Kitty cried, grabbing for but missing Zoe's arm as the girl wheeled past.

“Leave me alone. You all leave me alone! I
hate
you—” Zoe screamed and raced from the room.

Ma Elise rose to her full height. “I'll go see to her.”

“Ma Elise—” Kitty started.

“No. Sit down. It was my decision to keep these secrets all these years. And I see now that probably I was wrong. So I'll take the responsibility for setting it to rights, as much as I can. Starting this minute.” And she followed in Zoe's footsteps, out and up the stairs.

“Oh, my God.” Kitty collapsed back into her chaise. She closed her eyes. “Aren't we Lees just bad Tennessee Williams? Lord, Lord, Lord.”

G.T. shook her head. “Yep. Well, we're all something, aren't we? Families—”

Ida nodded. “I'm not going to say I told her so.”