The Heavenly Table (38 page)

It had been a busy morning—seven outhouses inspected, a wasp nest pulled down and burned, two tickets written, and four rats taken out with a blackjack—and the time had flown by, but when the church bell at Saint Mary’s struck noon, Cob suddenly remembered Cane back at the hotel. “I got to go,” he told Jasper.

“What’s your hurry?”

Cob thought the question over. Fortunately, Cane had coached him a little yesterday afternoon in what to say if he found himself in a tight spot, and though he wasn’t sure if this qualified as one, he figured he better be careful just the same. “Tom will be wonderin’ where I’m at,” he finally said.

“Tom? Who’s that?”

“My brother. He’s at the hotel.”

“Hotel?” Jasper said. “What ye do staying there? Are ye just traveling through?”

“Yeah,” Cob replied.

“How long you plannin’ on staying?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a day or two.”

A flicker of disappointment passed over Jasper’s face, but then he reminded himself it was always better to look on the bright side. “Well, look, if you’re still here in the morning and want to get in on some more inspections, just meet me at that bench around the same time, okay?” As he watched Junior turn and hurry off, he vaguely wondered where he and his brother might be going. He’d always wanted to take a trip himself, see how people did things, say, over in Indiana or up in Michigan. He hoped they stuck around for a while; it had been nice having someone to talk to who didn’t make fun of him or call him names like Crapper Cop and Shit Bucket. In fact, it was better than nice; he figured it had been the best day he’d had since before Itchy died.

54

S
HORTLY AFTER NINE
o’clock that morning, Cane had awakened to find Cob missing. He shaved and washed up hurriedly and threw his clothes on, then spent the next two hours walking up and down the streets looking for him and regretting he’d ever drank that pint of whiskey last night. The last thing he remembered was Richard III limping along a gloomy corridor talking crazy shit to himself. What the hell would they do if Cob got lost, or, God forbid, got himself arrested for some trivial offense? Would he be able to keep his story straight? Cane was headed back to the McCarthy to see if his brother might have returned when he came upon a bookstore he had passed by earlier. Fuck it, he thought, ten minutes wouldn’t make much difference one way or another. A bell rang when he opened the door, but he didn’t see anyone behind the counter. He was looking through the shelves when a pretty, dark-haired woman by the name of Susannah Chapman came out of the back and asked if he needed any help finding something. Cane glanced at her, then quickly returned his gaze to the shelves. His throat constricted a little as he realized he was probably standing as close to a real lady as he ever had in his life, but after a moment, he managed to ask, in a slightly hoarse voice, “You wouldn’t happen to have one called
The Life and Times of Bloody Bill Bucket,
would ye?”

“No,” Susannah said, “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that one. Is it something new?” It sounded trashy to her, and her father made it a point not to carry such books, which was a noble idea, but also an impractical one when it came to doing business in a factory town like Meade. Most people here weren’t interested in expanding their minds or learning something new or reading the classics; they just wanted to be entertained a little in between another boring supper and another dead sleep.

“No, it’s pretty old, I think.” He turned and looked around the shop. “Nice place ye got here.” The smell of so many books combined with her perfume was more intoxicating than any whiskey he’d ever tasted.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s my father’s store. I just help out sometimes.”

“Ye got anything you’d recommend?”

“Well, what do you like?”

He shrugged. “Stories, I guess. Just started this one called
Richard the Third.
”

“Oh, I love Shakespeare,” she said. “ ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for—’ ” She broke off then, putting her hand to her mouth and looking slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I guess I got a little carried away. I almost gave away the ending.” Even though he had a thick Southern accent and a cheap suit, Susannah noticed that the customer was quite handsome in a rough, manly sort of way. She would have never thought by looking at him that he had any interest in Elizabethan drama, or, for that matter, that he’d ever read anything other than newspapers and maybe a cheap thriller or two. Her current suitor, Sandy Saunders, was the exact opposite of everything this man seemed to be. An insurance salesman for Mutual of Omaha, Sandy spent almost every dime he made from his commissions on the latest fashions and playing big-shot at the Candlelight Supper Club with a couple of his chums on the city council. Anytime he took her out on a date, it seemed as if his main objective was to stick her fingers in his mouth, which she thought was sweet the first time he did it, but had since turned creepy. Though he was attractive enough, his looks had never transcended the boyish stage and now, at thirty, were already starting to fade due to his constant carousing. Too, he was somewhat erratic, and could get angry over the most ridiculous things. For example, he’d been nursing a resentment against the mayor and the city engineer ever since they’d hired Jasper Cone to look over the town’s outhouses. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he shut up about them and began focusing all his rage on Jasper instead, saying the most cruel and hateful things about the pathetic little man. Still, that wasn’t what stopped her from fully committing herself to Sandy. Books were her greatest passion, and she could never get serious about a man who didn’t read, let alone marry one. To do so, she felt, would be like hitching her star to a fence post that just happened to breathe air and draw a paycheck. In the two years he had been courting her, he had yet to finish
Treasure Island,
which was the book he’d bought when he came in the shop to ask her out the first time. She sensed the customer watching her as she glided her fingers along a shelf, and it made her tingle slightly. Had Sandy ever aroused such a feeling in her? No, she thought regretfully, no matter how hard he sucked on her fingers. She pulled out two leather-backed volumes: a slightly scuffed but tight copy of
Great Expectations
and a pristine
Collected Stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
“Try these,” she told Cane, “and if you don’t like them, you can bring them back.”

He glanced at them and nodded (he would have accepted anything she handed him, even a cookbook written in Italian or a walking guide to Great Britain), then followed her to the front of the store, watching her hips slightly sway as she walked. Pulling out a wad of cash, he laid a twenty on the counter, and she began wrapping the books in a sheet of white paper. He glanced around the store again, trying to build up the courage to ask her out to dinner. Wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers, he realized that he was more nervous than he’d been when he and his brothers walked into their first bank back in Farleigh. Just then he saw Cob limping by the window. Christ, looked for him all morning, and now he shows up. “I’m much obliged,” he told her, snatching the parcel out of her hands.

“Wait. What about your change?”

“Keep it,” he said as he hurried out the door.

“Goddamn it, where have you been?” he asked Cob when he caught up with him. “I thought something happened.”

“No, I was just with the sanitation inspector.”

“Who?”

“Some guy I met this morning when I sittin’ on a bench eatin’ doughnuts.”

Cane waited until some people passed by, then pulled Cob by the shirtsleeve into an alley. “What did you tell him your name was?” he said urgently.

“Junior Bradford.”

“What else?”

“Nothing. He did most of the talking. His name’s Jasper.”

“So what is he again?”

“The sani…the sanitation inspector.”

“What the hell’s that? Is he some kind of lawman?”

“No, I don’t think so. He goes around trying to catch people doin’ their business in other people’s wells.”

“Are you sure?” Cane said. It sounded a bit unbelievable to him; maybe someone had just figured out how gullible his brother was and decided to pull his leg.

“Yeah, I was with him all morning. He’s a nice feller.”

“Christ, who in the hell would take a shit in somebody’s drinking water?”

“I don’t know, but there must be a lot of them doin’ it, the way he talks.”

“And that’s a job, what he does?”

“I guess so,” Cob said. “He seems to think it is anyway. You ain’t mad at me, are ye?”

Cane sighed and shook his head. “No, but next time don’t leave without telling me where you’re going first. I been looking all over for you. Remember, we got to be careful.”

“He wants me to go with him again tomorrow. Is that all right?”

“What, to look in more privies? Why would you want to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Cob said with a shrug. “He said we was friends. Besides, what else am I gonna do?”

Cane’s stomach growled. Looking down the street, he saw a sign hanging over a door that said
WHITE’S LUNCHEONETTE.
He’d been half sick all morning from the liquor he drank last night, but now he felt ravenous. “You had anything to eat?”

“Just the doughnuts,” Cob said. He wanted to ask why the lady would give them away for free, and what “on de house” meant, but his brother already seemed a little upset. Maybe later, he thought.

“Well, let’s go get something.”

“Did you have a good time out at that whore shed last night?” Cob asked as they started walking toward the diner.

“Ah, not really,” Cane said, wishing he’d had enough nerve to ask the bookstore lady her name. “But Chimney sure did.”

55

T
HAT AFTERNOON, A
tree buyer for the paper mill named Nesbert Motley let Sugar out of his automobile at the bridge on the south side of town. Motley was coming back from making an offer on a pristine stand of hardwood down below Buchanan when he came around a curve and damn near ran over the black man standing in the middle of the road. He didn’t mind at all giving him a ride—some of the best days of his boyhood over in Lancaster had been spent in the company of a colored boy named Smoky Hansberry—but he was a little hesitant about being seen uptown with somebody so ragged and wild-looking. And what if he later caused trouble? It was true that Sugar looked like he was at the end of his rope. He hadn’t had a bite of food except walnuts or a drink of anything but water in three days; the loose sole of one of his shoes flapped with every step he took, and he’d had to tie a piece of ivy around his pants to keep them from falling to the ground. Probably the only thing still keeping him upright was his determination to get back to Detroit and start sweet-talking Flora’s friend.

Sugar was walking past the reeking, rackety mill wondering why someone would ever voluntarily stick around such a place when he saw a big man in front of a bar motioning him over. Sugar hesitated a moment, then crossed the street and stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. “You want something?” he asked the man.

“You look thirsty,” Pollard said. He’d been sitting on the steps pondering the notice that had been stuck inside his door this morning, informing him that the city was hereby fining him three dollars every week until he emptied his outhouse, or at least took it down to an “acceptable level.” Just like the fucking shit scooper had threatened.

“You got that right,” Sugar replied.

“You looking for a job?”

“I don’t know nothin’ about tendin’ bar.”

Pollard laughed. “Don’t worry, business is bad enough without me lettin’ a nigger take over.” He tore the notice into little pieces and tossed them in the air. “No, what I’m lookin’ for is someone to clean out the jake in the back. You take her down four feet, I’ll give you two dollars and a pint.”

Within seconds of hearing the offer, Sugar could already taste the liquor on his parched tongue. A pint! By God, he’d down it in one long drink. And two dollars! That would buy two more. As far as food went, why, he could worry about that later. “Let me see it,” he said.

Pollard led him around the side of the building. “There it is,” he said, pointing at an outhouse at the edge of the alley, made of rough slabs with a rickety door hanging a little cockeyed from leather straps.

Sugar opened the door and the stench brought tears to his eyes. A cloud of flies emerged into the sunlight, as if even they couldn’t stand the smell anymore. He held his breath and looked inside. The contents were bubbling up over the top of the hole, like a volcano ready to erupt. Just as he was on the verge of telling the man no, he thought of the pint again. “How would I go about it?” he asked, once he stepped away from the door.

“Ye’d have to dip it out,” Pollard said. “It’s easy. The lid lifts up. I usually do it myself, but I hurt my back the other day.” He pointed to a dented tin bucket lying near the back door of the bar. “You can use that.”

“But where would I put it?” Sugar asked. “That’d be quite a pile by the time I got done.”

“Jesus Christ,” Pollard said, “what do you want me to do, hold your hand, too?” He looked around, then nodded toward the well-kept yard that belonged to the Grady bitch on the other side of the alley. “Just toss it over the fence there.”

“Two dollars and a pint, right?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Could I have a snort ’fore I get started?”

“Ha!” Pollard said. “I might be dumb, but I ain’t plumb dumb. I’ll pay ye when you finish the job.”

For the next three hours, Sugar dipped shit from the hole with the leaky bucket and carried it across the alley, dumped it over the other side of the fence. By the time he finished, there was a pile of waste standing four feet high in Mrs. Grady’s backyard, the edge of it sliding slowly toward the meticulously maintained plot bordered with seashells and white pebbles that contained her prizewinning rosebushes. He was just getting ready to knock on the back door of the bar to ask for his pay when a policeman sped up the alley in a car and stopped. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the cop asked in a sharp voice.