1981 - Hand Me a Fig Leaf (3 page)

"Thank you," I said. "That's just what I want." I paused, then went on, "You tell me that you never met Mitch Jackson, and yet you said, in spite of him being a national hero, you're not sorry. Would you explain that?" He looked a little shifty, then shrugged.

"You should understand, Mr. Wallace, I am not a native of this town. It has taken me some time to get accepted. I bought a partnership with Morgan who retired and has lately died. I run this business. Mitch Jackson has a big reputation here because he won the medal, so I wouldn't want to be quoted. The kids here adore his memory, so what I'll tell you is strictly off the record."

"No problem," I said. "You don't get mentioned if that's what you want."

"That's what I want." He stared hard at me, then continued, "I came to Searle after Mitch Jackson had died. I heard plenty about him. The natives had been scared of him. According to them he had been a vicious thug, hut, when he won the medal, the town made him folklore and the girls here shot their stupid lids and now treat his memory as if he was some god-awful pop-singer."

I let that one drift. When I was a kid, my idol was Sinatra . . . Kids have to have idols.

"If you want the inside dope about Mitch Jackson, you should ask Abe Levi," Weatherspoon went on. "He's one of my truckers who collects frog-barrels up north. He's been collecting from Fred Jackson for years." He looked at his watch. "He'll be in the processing-shed right now. Do you want to talk to him?"

"Sure, and thanks, Mr. Weatherspoon. Just one other thing: anything you can tell me about Fred Jackson?"

He shook his head.

"No. I've never seen him. I heard he lost both legs, fighting an alligator. While he was recovering, Mitch did the frog-catching, then Fred got mobile again. His catch has been falling off recently, but that's to be expected at his age. From what I hear, he's tough and honest."

I got to my feet.

"I'll talk to Levi."

He pointed through the window.

"That big shed there. He'll be taking his lunch." He stood up. "Nice meeting you, Mr. Wallace. If there's anything else you want to know about frogs, you know where to find me."

We shook hands and I walked out into the stench.

In the shed, where a number of coloured girls were dissecting frogs, a sight and smell that made me want to gag, I found a man, around sixty-five, eating out of a can of beans. That anyone could eat in that awful stink beat me, but this man, short, squat, powerfully built with a greying beard and none too clean, seemed to be enjoying his meal.

I gave him the same story as I had given Weatherspoon about collecting information for an agency. He listened while he ate, then regarded me with grey eyes that lit up with cunning light of the poor.

For years I had been digging for information and I knew that look.

"Mr. Weatherspoon tells me," I said, "you could give me information. I don't expect information for nothing. Would five bucks interest you?"

"Ten bucks would be better," he said promptly.

I took a five-dollar bill from my wallet and waved it in his direction.

"Five to start. Let's see how we go."

He snapped the bill from my fingers the way a lizard snaps up a fly.

"Okay, mister. What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about Fred Jackson. You've known him for years, I'm told."

"That's right, and the more I see him the less I want to. He's a mean old cuss. Okay, I guess most people would turn mean if they lost their legs, but Fred has always been mean."

"Mean? Are you saying he is close with money?"

"I didn't say that, although he is close, but he has a mean nature. The kind of man who would do dirt to his best friend and think nothing of it." Levi squinted at me. "Not that Fred ever had any friends. He has a mean character, like his son."

"His son won the Medal of Honor."

Levi snorted.

"He won it because he's tough, mean and vicious. He never cared a damn what he walked into. I don't call that brave. I call it stupid. The Jacksons are rotten. I've no time for either of them. I've been up to Jacksons' cabin every week for more than twenty years. Never once did either of them offer me a beer. Never once did either of them give me a hand loading the barrels, and frog-barrels are mighty heavy. Mind you, now Fred's lost his legs, I don't expect help, but Mitch, when he was around, watched me strain my guts out and just grinned." He snorted. "Other frog-fanners always give me a beer and a hand, but never the Jacksons." He looked inside the tin of beans, scraped, found a couple of beans and ate them.

"All this talk about Mitch Jackson being a national hero makes me want to puke. The fact is the towns well rid of him."

I wasn't getting anything more from him than I had already got from Weatherspoon.

"Did you meet the grandson?"

"Just once. I saw him up there. I arrived in the truck and he was washing clothes in a tub. I guess Fred made him earn his keep. As soon as he saw me, he went into the shack and Fred came out. I never spoke to the kid. I guess he got-choked living with Fred and took off when Mitch was killed. I only saw him this once. That's close on six years ago."

"He would be around fourteen years of age?"

"I guess. A skinny kid, nothing like either of the Jacksons. I've often wondered if he was really Mitch's son. Mitch had the kind of face you see in police mug-shots. This kid had class. The kids at his school said that. They said he was different. I guess he sure must have took after his mother."

"Know anything about her?"

Levi shook his head.

"No one does. Probably some piece Mitch screwed. Could have been any girl around the district. He never left the girls alone. I dunno, maybe the kid had the same itch. I remember seeing a girl up there."

He thought, then shook his head. "That was only four months ago, long after the kid was thought to have taken off."

Not showing my interest, I said casually, "Tell me about the girl."

"I only caught a glimpse of her. She was washing clothes the way the kid washed clothes in a tub outside the cabin. As soon as I drove around the bend, she ran into the cabin and kept out of sight. When Fred turned up, I asked him if he had hired help, but he just growled at me: no more than I could expect from him. I thought he must have hired a girl from the town to replace the kid. I admit I was nosey and I asked around, but no one knew of any girl working for Fred." He shrugged. "I never saw her again."

"What was she like? How old?"

He licked the spoon he was holding, then put it in his pocket.

"Young, thin with long yellow hair. I noticed her hair. It reached to her waist and was dirty."

"What was she wearing?"

"Jeans and something. I don't remember. Maybe Johnny was there after all and she was shacking up with him. Fred wouldn't have cared. He didn't care about the way Mitch went on with girls." He paused, then with a sly grin, asked, "How am I doing?"

"One more question. I'm told Mitch was a loner. Didn't he even have one friend?"

Levi scratched his dirty beard.

"Yeah, there was a jerk Mitch went around with. Like Mitch: no good." He gazed into space. "Right now, I don't seem to remember his name."

I produced another five-dollar bill, but kept it out of his reach. He even the bill, scratched his beard some more, then nodded.

"Yeah. I remember now . . . Syd Watkins. He got drafted the same time as Mitch. The town was glad to see both of them go. His ma and dad were respectable. They ran the grocery store at Searle, but when she died he retired. He couldn't run the store without her and Syd never did a day's work in his life."

"Mitch and Syd were pals?"

Levi grimaced.

"I wouldn't know about that. They were thieving partners and went around together. When Mitch picked a quarrel, Syd never joined in. He just watched. You could say he was the brains and Mitch was the brawn."

"After the war, did he come home?"

"No. From time to time, I have a drink with his dad. The old man is always expecting to hear from his son, but, so far, never has. All he knows is Syd was discharged from the army, came back to the States and then dropped out of sight. It's my bet he's up to no good."

I brooded for a long moment, then gave him the other five-dollar bill.

"If I think of anything, I'll see you again," I said. I was longing to get out of that shed and breathe some clean smelling air. "Are you always here at this time?"

"Sure am," he said and put the bill in his pocket. "How do I get to Fred's place?"

"You got a car?"

I nodded.

"It's some five miles from here." He gave me detailed directions. "You be careful with Fred . . . he's mean."

With a lot to think about, I walked to where I had my car and set off for Alligator Lane.

As I drove up the main street, I passed the sheriff s office. I wondered if I should stop off and introduce myself. From past experience, I had learned local sheriffs could be hostile to an operator, nosing around their territory, but I decided I should first talk to Fred Jackson. He had hired the agency to find his grandson. Maybe he wanted to keep the investigation confidential.

Abe Levi had warned me that Alligator Lane wasn't sign-posted. He had told me to look out for d narrow turning off the highway, half concealed by sparkleberry bushes. By taking it slow with no traffic to bother me, I came upon the turning and swung the car onto a dirt lane, twisting and turning like a dying snake and bordered either side with dense forest. After a couple of miles, the lane widened: a place where trucks could wait before driving down the one-way lane to the highway.

I knew I was approaching Jackson's cabin by the distant sound of the croaking of frogs. I kept on, then the lane narrowed again and turned sharply to the right. I edged the car forward and before me was a wooden cabin, a water-well and a bucket near the entrance door, a bench under one of the grimy windows and a frog-barrel.

I had arrived.

I stopped the car, cut the engine, then tapped the horn. Nothing happened. The only sound was the croaking of frogs. I waited, then tapped the horn again.

Still nothing happened.

I told myself that Fred Jackson was out hunting frogs. I got out of the car. The air was steamy hot.

The trees cut off any breeze that might have been around. The continuous frog noise grated on my nerves.

There was something almost human in that noise: like very old men clearing phlegm from their throats.

I lit a cigarette as I studied the cabin. It had been well constructed in pine-wood. From the look of the outside, it would have a big living-room and probably two bedrooms.

I saw the front door stood ajar.

The heat was beginning to make me sweat: that and the frog orchestra and the loneliness of the place increased my tension. There was an eerie atmosphere that hung over the place that I could feel.

I wandered to the front door and rapped. Nothing happened, so, after rapping again and waiting, I pushed the door open. The shrill squeak of rusty hinges gave me a start.

I peered into the gloom of a large room, furnished with heavy junk you see in market auctions and which no one, these days, wanted.

I saw Fred Jackson sitting at the big table. It had to be Jackson because the old bearded man at the table had no legs. Before him was a plate of some kind of stew. I couldn't see much of it as it was covered with a canopy of excited blowflies.

My eyes shifted to an enormous brown and green bullfrog that sat at the far end of the table, watching the blowflies. It looked at me with glittering black eyes, then leapt into the air, coming in my direction, making me duck. It landed on the floor with a plop and was gone.

"Mr. Jackson,” I began, then stopped.

The man at the table continued to sit motionless.

By now, my eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom. I moved into the room.

"Mr. Jackson. . .?"

The blowflies buzzed, lifted, then resettled on what was on the plate.

Then I saw blood trickling down Jackson's face, slowly and congealing.

I saw the bullet-hole in the middle of Jackson's dirty forehead.

He was now as dead as his son, but much more neatly killed.

chapter two

I
paused in the open doorway of the sheriff s office and looked around. The scene was familiar.

You'll see it again and again on TV movies: the gun-rack; handcuffs hanging from hooks; the two desks and three unoccupied cells.

An atmosphere of inactivity and boredom hung over the office like a mantle of dust.

At the big desk facing me, Sheriff Tim Mason, according to the plaque on the desk, sat like an enthroned Buddha. It seemed to me only his soiled khaki blouse, on which was the sheriff s star, and his trousers held his fat together. He was possibly the fattest man I have seen and, what was more, his flushed and veined face, bloodshot eyes and the sweat dripping from under his Stetson told me he was a bottle-hitter.

At the other desk was what seemed to me a blue-eyed boy who could have been Mickey Rooney's double when Rooney was playing juvenile roles. The plaque on his desk told me he was Deputy Sheriff Bill Anderson.

Sheriff Mason stared at me as if he were trying to get me in focus. Deputy Sheriff Anderson got to his feet. He was pintsize, but he had plenty of beef and muscle around his shoulders.

"Something I can do for you?" he asked with a hesitant smile. I guessed he would be around twenty-three or twenty-four years of age.

I moved into the office and to his desk.

"Reporting the murder of Frederick Jackson of Alligator Lane," I said.

Deputy Sheriff Anderson reared back as if I had pasted one on his chin.

"Who the hell are you?" Mason demanded in a loud, bullying voice.

I took out my wallet, selected one of my business cards and, moving over to him, put the card on his He picked up the card with a shaky hand, peered at it for a long moment, then managed to get the print in focus.

"A goddamn peeper!" His fat face turned vicious. "I don't like peepers! What are you doing in my town?"