Shadow Country (58 page)

“Oh my goodness!” An old fart dropped a radish as her spouse harrumphed in scared protest and the line, milling in panic, clutched its plates. “For Christ's sake, Dyer!” Lucius, who was right behind him, felt hated by his fellow farts for being associated with a cruel villain out to ruin their heartwarming encounter with this delightful negro personality.

“Playin the fool, tha's right. Tha's what you doin, black boy. You ain't heard the man?” The carver's voice was low and hard as grated pebbles. “Tha's all you doin, Mistuh Black Man. Playin the fool.”

“Carve,”
Dyer panted, out of breath in the ecstasy of his all-purifying anger.

Summoning him closer with a big mad grin, the carver leaned forward to whisper in his ear as if to share a secret. But the real secret was the knife, which he slid across the carving board on the flat of its handle, just far enough to pink the other's belly through his shirt. And his pebbly voice grated, “Back off, mothafuck. Get outta my face.” When Dyer sprang back, jarring a table, the carver straightened up again, quaking with mirth, as if this customer had told him some hilarious story. “Yassuh, that sho' is
right
!” Using his blade, he was dumping so many slices on Dyer's plate that the attorney had to lift it high to fend off more bloody meat. “Had enough, my frien'? Doan go to spillin good blood gravy on yo' shirt.”

Dyer raised his gaze from the big knife and its heaped meat to the bloodshot eyes in the carver's shining face. The room was still but for the thin scrape of a chair. Lucius watched the black man lick his lower lip, watched his fury weaken, watched his glare slide sideways and the slices fall from the knife.

Dyer dumped his heap of meat onto the cutting board. The carver replaced it with a modest helping. Finding his voice, he mumbled, “Doin my job, tha's all it is, suh. Makin folks feel good, way they wants it.”

Dyer moved on past. Sending his plate to the table with a waitress, he went straight to the door. A manager was summoned. He displayed his bloodied shirt. Both looked at the carver as they spoke.

Observing this, the black man turned a furious scowl upon Rob Watson, slapping meat down on Rob's plate. “Happy now? Got what you wanted?” He waved him past with the big knife which he pointed at Lucius's eyes. “
Yes,
suh! You know them gen'lemens?”

Lucius nodded. “My brothers.”

“The three brothers! Lo'd A'mighty!” The carver detained him by pressing the knife blade down hard on his plate, pinning the china to the butcher board. “How 'bout you? Got somethin smart you want to say?”

“I want to say that I'm extremely sorry.”

The black man had been summoned from his post.
“Sorry?”
He stabbed his knife into the carving board, upright and shivering, as the food line yawed and fell away in fright. “I'se the one gets to be sorry! And my woman! And my kids! On account they's hard times comin in this country and you damn
gen'lemans
has los' me my damn
job!
” He stripped off his bloody apron, balled it up, and hurled it across the steam tables of vegetables onto the soups before banging his way out through the pantry doors.

POWER OF ATTORNEY

The waitress wore a gold chain on her rhinestone glasses, and her ears stuck out through lank black hair like a horse mane. With alarm she watched Dyer attacking his red meat, the knife blade and fork tines grating on the porcelain. “How
you
folks doin this evenin?” she ventured. “Ever'thin all right?” Unnerved by the attorney's glare, she fled.

Watson Dyer stabbed at his roast beef, forked it away. He made no mention of the carver. Lucius felt too roiled to eat. Rob was muttering, “It's all my fault. I'd better go tell his boss.”

“Do it, then,” snapped Lucius.

“Save your breath.” Dyer spoke through a crude mouthful of meat, not looking up. The management, he said, had already expressed gratitude to a valued customer for reporting an outrage by a loudmouth nigger who had never learned his place; their dinner would be complimentary, the culprit fired. He forked another mouthful and chewed swiftly, processing his food while going through his papers.

Dyer briefed them in a rapid-fire manner. Two days hence, a public hearing on the Watson claim would be held in Homestead. He had been assured by colleagues in the judicial system that the claimants might be awarded lifetime use and historical status for the house. Time was short. What he needed at once was full power of attorney, which would give him the authority to make decisions without prior consultation with the family. “It's quite customary in these matters,” he assured them, pushing a form toward Lucius for his signature. “Authority to act swiftly might be critical.”

Lucius felt rushed. “My signature has to be notarized, isn't that true?”

“I happen to be a notary,” Dyer said, impatient, already digging in his briefcase for his seal.

Something seemed wrong or missing here but Lucius, still shaken by the episode with the carver and anxious to be done with the whole business, said to hell with it and scrawled his signature.

Rob whistled in alarm. “Oh boy,” he said.

“I want this witnessed by all Watson heirs here present. No exceptions,” Dyer added, turning to Rob. “Not even you.” Extending his pen, he contemplated Rob's shock with open pleasure.

Rob rose in a lurch of plates, overturning his water glass. He glared at his brother before telling Dyer, “I won't sign a fucking thing.” The attorney grasped his upper arm and held him by main force. “Hold your horses, Robert.” When Rob stopped struggling, Dyer released him and placed another document beside his plate, rapping it sharply with his knuckle. “Read this first,” he said. Rob glanced at the new document, dropped it on the table, rose again, and headed for the door, where he paused briefly to remonstrate about the carver—in vain, it appeared, for after a brief arm-waving dispute he disappeared.

Dyer addressed his baked potato, which he ate in stolid silence. “How much do you know about him?” he asked finally. “Or should I say, how much do you
want
to know?”

“His life is his own business.”

“But you suspected something, right?” Dyer put down his fork to make a note. “Why did you never tell me he was Robert Watson?”

“I didn't know that when we last spoke—not that I would have told you anyway without his permission.”

“Any idea why he changed his name?”

“Why is that any of your concern?” He shrugged. “He hated his father. Took his mother's name when he ran away.”

“He's still running away.” Dyer handed him the copy of the prison record, which Lucius glanced at and tossed back. “You knew this, didn't you?”

“I learned today.”

Dyer grinned his rare thin grin. “Not interested in how I found out?”

“Now that I know you better, I can guess. Cheap Golden Dinner? You lifted his fingerprints? Swiped his spoon?”

Dyer nodded, a bit cross. “His fork.” He returned Rob's record to his briefcase. “The law knows he's somewhere in the area. The federals may be in town already.”

“I wonder who tipped 'em off.” Disgusted, Lucius rose. Dyer said comfortably, “A licensed attorney and God-fearing American fully cognizant of his civic duty had no choice.”

“You pledged allegiance to your flag and to the republic for which it stands, is that correct? One nation indivisible—”

“No need to get snotty just because you're drunk.” He looked coldly at Lucius's whiskey. “Fundamentalist Americans are proud to pledge allegiance. Proud to worship the Father and the Son Who is Jesus Christ Our Lord and also abstain from intoxicating spirits.” He pointed his forefinger at Lucius's eyes as his face clotted. “I hate to hear a feller American speak sarcastically about our flag. I really
hate
that.”

“Same way you hate ‘niggers'?” Lucius sat up straight, took a slow breath. “If Rob will witness your power of attorney, you'll set aside your bounden duty to turn him in: is that your offer?”

Dyer scraped his plate. “There may be questions. I'll need to know where I can find him. Out at your place, maybe?” Dyer leaned back in his chair and suppressed a belch. “You're already subject to arrest and prosecution for harboring a fugitive, by the way.” He handed his half brother a card. It had no address on it, only a phone number. “If he leaves town, I'll expect a call. Confidential, of course. All you have to do is call and then you're out of it.”

“God, what a prick you turned out to be.” He tossed his card back at Dyer. “You're fired.”

“It's not that easy.” Watt Dyer wiped his mouth, drank down his water, and rose to follow him, forgetting the napkin balled tight in his fist. Hearing a frightened “Sir?” behind him, he tossed it back over his shoulder without turning. Overtaking Lucius in the lobby, he took hold of the back of his upper arm. “Better think that over, Professor,” he said, propelling Lucius forward ever so slightly as if he meant to run him through the door. “For your brother's sake.”

“
Our
brother, you mean? Go sign your own damn papers, Wattie.”

Releasing him, Dyer said in a thick voice, “Let me tell you something,
Brother.
You don't want me for an enemy.” His moon face looked swollen again, and those skin shivers appeared at the mouth corners. “I'll expect a call,” Watt Dyer said and kept on going.

GUNSLINGER STYLE

Lucius was coming down the hall when a small explosion rattled the door of his brother's room. Inside, Rob's satchel lay open on the bed and a revolver cartridge glinted on the floor. The bathroom door was closed. hearing a second shot, he jumped for the doorknob shouting, “Rob, NO!” before he heard the screech of tires and the rebel yell—
ya-hee!

Kneeling at the bathroom window, Rob blew smoke from the revolver muzzle, gunslinger-style, to amuse his brother, as startled voices rose from outside and below. Lucius pulled him away in time to see a black car moving down the street, thumpeting on one rear tire. It stopped for a red light. The green came and then the red and then the green again. It did not move and nobody got out. Black as ants, figures crisscrossed beneath the street light, bent to look inside, looked back toward the hotel.

In the parking lot, a shouting man was pointing up at Lucius, who kept his head and leaned farther out the window. “What's going on?” he called. “Thought I heard shooting!” He ducked inside again.

Fallen back onto the bed, Rob was still crowing. “Ran that cold-eyed sonofabitch clean off the property! Had him skedaddling like a damn duck!” Lucius grabbed the gun and emptied it. “You're a damned idiot,” he said. He rushed Rob across the corridor to the fire stairs, directing him to a nearby speakeasy where he was to wait until Lucius came to get him. Rob yelled back up the stairwell, “How about my stuff?,” but kept on going.

Wrapping the revolver into his brother's dirty sweater, Lucius replaced it in the satchel, noting what constituted Rob's worldly goods. He owned three spare socks, a grayed pair of spare undershorts, a cheap checked spare shirt, a rusted razor, a frayed toothbrush but no paste, also a few loose cartridges, a large envelope, and a stained packet of folded sheets of yellowed paper with soft slits where the dark creases had worn through. Lucius tucked his old posse list into his breast pocket.

The envelope, marked “For Lucius,” contained a penciled manuscript. He considered it a moment, put it back. Why read the thing? Even if Rob had his facts straight and his memory was dependable, his testimony might only mean that Papa had been temporarily out of his mind. Should the extraordinary life of a bold frontier entrepreneur be discounted because of the mad acts of a few minutes?

Well, Lucius, should it? Are you scared to read it?

He put the list back, too. Let Rob have the chance to return it if he wished.

Closing the satchel, he took a last look out the window. In soft evening rain, the black car still squatted in the middle of the street and the crowd was larger. Oh Lord, Rob, he thought, you're finished.

The fire stairs resounded with footfalls and the shouts of people bursting into corridors. From the night streets came the howl of sirens. In the rain slick and night glare, he drove the few blocks to the saloon.

“For a wanted man, you made a bad mistake,” he said, sliding into the wooden booth. “I just hope you missed him.”

“I never shot at him. Just shot one tire out with Papa's old revolver. Nailed the rear wheel on a moving vee-hickle!” He grinned with bitter pride. “Seeing Sonborn work his shootin' iron would have made ol' Bloody proud.”

“You think Dyer will believe that you weren't shooting at him?”

“Who cares? It's the damned truth.”

Lucius nodded. “His car's still sitting in the street. Looks like nobody got out. That's the damned truth, too.” They listened to the sirens. “Even if what you say is true, you gave him more reason than he'll ever need to have you put away for good.”

“I never shot at him, I told you! You don't believe me?”

“Who gives a damn what I believe? You think the law is going to accept that story? Slugs ricocheting around right outside the hotel? Suppose he was hit by accident?” He rose abruptly from the booth. “Let's go,” he said.

“It was just kind of a joke,” Rob whispered.

“We'll see how hard they laugh.” Lucius tossed money onto the table. “C'mon, sober up. You're already a fugitive, ‘armed and dangerous,' and you fired a lethal weapon in a public place at the car of a man you were seen quarreling with by forty witnesses only a few minutes earlier. If you get caught, they will rack your sorry ass.”

Rob followed him into the street. “Where we going, Luke?” His chastened tone made Lucius feel like the older brother. “Home, I guess, till we figure out what to do. They won't find their way out there for a day or two.” But Caxambas would be no solution. He saw no solution anywhere.