Nightwork (4 page)

“I’m not selling it,” Dave said. “I’m a death-claims investigator. I’m looking into the death of Paul Myers.”

She frowned a little. “Was he a member of this congregation? I don’t remember the name.”

“He was a friend of a member of this congregation.” Beyond her, Dave glimpsed movement in a room dark by contrast to the blazing sunlight outdoors. “Ossie Bishop. I’m told he died recently too. I’d like to talk to his wife, Louella, but I hear she’s moved.”

A tall, lean old man, very black, bald, with a fringe of springy white hair, appeared beside the woman. He took off horn-rimmed spectacles and peered at Dave. “She and her children left right after the funeral—I’d say it was more than just leaving. I’d call it running away.”

“You men talk,” the woman said. “I’ve got chickens and a whole lot of ribs to barbecue.” She faded from sight. Her tall, straight old husband pushed open the screen door. He said, “Come in and sit down. Perhaps you’d enjoy to have a little iced tea.” As Dave went indoors past him, the man peered, squinting, at the blazing morning. He too saw the Jaguar and was quiet for a moment. He closed the screen door and latched it. “I hope the damage to your car didn’t happen here.”

“It was my own fault.” Dave waited among folding chairs in a room surprisingly large. Walls had been knocked out, hadn’t they? This place had to do as parish house as well as rectory. The good cooking smells were strong here. A pair of long, fold-down tables rested against a side wall. He had glimpsed others set out in the walnut grove. There was going to be a picnic today or tonight. Luther Prentice, D.D., closed the wooden house door and said, “There is going to be a church picnic tonight at six.” He smiled. “You’re welcome to come.” He motioned with a long hand whose nails were large and pink and whose palm was pale. “Please sit down. These are not comfortable chairs, but they are what we have, and we are thankful for them.”

“I appreciate the invitation to the picnic.” Dave sat. The chair was steel, with a thin seat cushion. The metal of the back made a cold band below his shoulder blades where jacket and shirt were sweaty. “But the Sheriff’s men advise me not to drive that car here anymore. They cite the high unemployment rate in Gifford Gardens as responsible for the risk to property.”

“It is a beautiful car.” Prentice’s smile was slight as he sat down. He wore dark suit trousers and a neat plaid cotton shirt, buttoned below a large larynx that made his voice deep. “Beauty is so often mankind’s undoing. The Sheriff was right. It is too bad he couldn’t have warned you before the damage was done.”

“Perhaps then I wouldn’t have taken him seriously. Reverend Prentice, do you know where Louella Bishop ran away to? It’s vital that I talk to her.”

“I’ll get you the address,” Prentice said. “But I don’t know that talking to her will be of any use. She is a frightened woman. Her husband’s death frightened her. Ah, I’m forgetting the iced tea.” He got to his feet, went as stiffly as a man on stilts down the long room, and pushed open a swing door. Dave rose and opened the front door so he could watch the Jaguar. He couldn’t be sure who, from inside what house, had seen him driving here. He saw no one now. Off to the west, the curved glass of the towers of the Gifford place sparked sunlight above their treetops. Dave heard Prentice returning. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It appears to be lemonade today.”

“That’s fine.” Dave smiled and took the icy glass.

“Here is Louella Bishop’s address.” Prentice had written it in an old-fashioned angular hand on a slip of paper. Dave glanced at it and pushed it into a pocket. Halcon. A small town in a valley of boulder-strewn hills inland from Escondido. Avocado country, he seemed to remember. Citrus too. Hard blue skies. Prentice said, “A family she used to work for. Please—sit down.”

“Thank you.” Dave sat. So did the tall old man. “Paul Myers died in a truck crash. His wife says he was a good friend of Ossie Bishop. It was when Bishop died so suddenly that Paul took out life insurance. Did you know Bishop well? You conducted the funeral, am I right?” Prentice nodded. Dave said, “What can you tell me about the reason for his death?”

“Very little. It was sudden—that was all. He was here in church with her on Sunday. By Friday he was dead. Before sunrise. I know he was working hard, because she said so. Working day and night. But he was a robust man. She said it was a heart attack brought on by overwork. It’s possible, I suppose.”

Frowning thoughtfully, he paused and sipped his lemonade. Dave tried his. Nothing frozen about it. It was what it was supposed to be, and it was not too sweet.

Prentice said, “Sometimes those that look the strongest are really frail. To survive in this world, a black man has to start working early in life, and sometimes they burn out early.” He gave his glossy bald head a worried shake. “But she was afraid to talk about what took place that Thursday night. It wasn’t like her. She was talkative as a rule, open and easy.” He smiled to himself. “Always could find something to laugh about, didn’t matter what. She was a great help here at the church, and she lifted all our spirits with her gift of laughter. We already miss her sorely. However, she was normally a slow-moving woman, and she moved as if the Devil himself was after her when it came to leaving Gifford Gardens once Ossie was in the ground. Funeral was Monday morning. She was on her way south with the children and her worldly goods by nightfall.”

“That didn’t give her much time to sell the house,” Dave said. “Or did she only rent? What about his truck?”

“House wouldn’t be a problem. People around here dying for a roof to get in under that they can afford.” Prentice furrowed his brow. “As to the truck, most likely the boy drove it, the oldest, Melvil. His father hoped for him to be a driver too, once he finished high school. It would be a means of livelihood for the family, wouldn’t it, now that the father is gone? The investment in one of those big trucks must be considerable.”

“In the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars, these days,” Dave said.

“Speaking of Melvil reminds me.” Prentice lifted his glass to take a final swallow from it. “He said something to his mother at the graveside. That she called the wrong doctor. He seemed angry with her, though he spoke low.”

“Who would have been the right doctor?”

“Most of us around here go to Dr. Hobart. He is a member of this congregation. Most Christian man I know.”

“Did Melvil name the doctor his mother called?”

“He was something to do with the trucking business.” Prentice took off his glasses and wiped them with a white, sharply creased handkerchief. “That’s all Melvil said. And white. Melvil didn’t like that.” Prentice looked sorrowful, putting his spectacles on again, pushing away the handkerchief. “I regret it very much when youngsters feel that way, but so many do now. ‘A new commandment I give unto you—that ye love one another.’ That’s what the Lord Jesus told us. That’s what I preach, is love. But the young men don’t come.” He stared forlornly past Dave at the door Dave had left standing open. “Those come that don’t need the sermon. But the young men don’t come.” He sighed. “It’s why we’re having this barbecue, you know. There won’t be any preaching. There’ll just be food. They are hungry, most of them.” He shook his head. “They take it out in hatred. Enmity between the races—it’s brought nothing but grief and sorrow and loss. But they are hating now more than ever. These gangs—black against brown. I don’t know where it’s going to end. We’re located here, where we are sitting now, right in the middle of it. Next block”—he held up a long black thumb—“you won’t hear anything but Spanish spoken. They come at night and paint their marks all over the walls. Obscenities too. But that’s not the worst.” He eyed Dave bleakly. “They are killing each other. Killing. And the innocent too. Children. They drive by and shoot, and it could be anybody gets hit. The police, they try to stop it, but they get killed too. We are in the last days, it appears.”

Dave set down his glass. “Who was the undertaker?”

“Wrightwood.” Prentice got up when Dave did. “This Paul Myers—why are you investigating his death?”

Dave told him, and the minister’s eyes widened. He said, “Then Louella Bishop was frightened. I was right.”

“I don’t know.” Dave started for the sun-bright doorway. “Paul Myers was murdered, so perhaps it’s natural that his widow should be frightened. But what frightened Louella Bishop? If her husband died of natural causes, why did she run so far, so fast?” He held out his hand. “Thank you for the address.”

“Whatever I can do.” Prentice shook Dave’s hand. His face changed. He lunged past Dave and flung open the screen door. “Get away from there!” He went down the steps. “You hear me? Drop those things!”

Two black kids raced off down the driveway, hubcaps flashing in their hands. Prentice ran after them at an old man’s run. Dave passed him. The car the boys piled into was another Mustang, its rear end smashed in. The bent trunk lid flapped high as the car careened away up Guava Street, a door still hanging open, legs kicking from the open door, laughter shouting from the open door. Dave halted on the grass in front of the church. Prentice came panting up to him.

Dave said, “Where did they get that name—The Edge?”

Prentice wiped his face with the neat handkerchief. “From a song—‘Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge, trying not to lose my head.’” He gazed dismally off up the street. He told Dave, “I am so terribly sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Dave said.

T
HE HIGH WALL AROUND T
he grounds of the Gifford place was almost invisible under matted honeysuckle vine. So were the pillars that held the tall iron gates. It took time to locate an intercom outlet among the leafage. The outlet looked new. It probably had to be replaced fairly often. He pressed a rectangular white plastic button. From here, because the trees were large and shaggy, he couldn’t see the cupola where he supposed De Witt Gifford sat. Beyond the gates, the grounds were neglected. Oleanders tall as trees crowded the drive, dropping the last of their blossoms, pink, white. Roses bloomed blowsy on long canes in flowerbeds rank with wild oats and milkweed. Dark ivy covered the ground and climbed the tree trunks. The intercom speaker crackled.

“I’m busy.” The voice was an old man’s, brittle. “Who are you? What do you want?” Dave told him. The snappish-ness went out of the voice. “Oh, yes, of course. How very—gentlemanly of you to come. Please wait.”

The wait was a long one. Dave spent it in the car. That seemed the best way to guard the car. The sun beat down. He lit a cigarette, but it tasted dry, and he put it out. He wished for a fresh glass of Mrs. Prentice’s lemonade, Below him lay the roofs of Gifford Gardens, drab gray, drab green, drab red, under a drab brown sky. He located the big rubber tree that marked the Kilgore School, the walnut grove where the church steeple rose, the pepper trees on Guava Street. Elsewhere in Gifford Gardens, trees were scarce. The developers in 1946 had bulldozed the oaks. Now dogs began to bark—big dogs, by the sound of them. Dave got out of the car.

Down the drive beyond the gates came a motorized invalid’s chair. The wire spokes of its wheels glittered in the darts of sunlight through the oleanders. In the wheelchair rode an old party in a tattered picture hat. Across blanketed knees lay a rifle. The picture hat was a woman’s, faded purple, decorated with bunches of wax grapes and cloth grape leaves, but the rider in the chair had a long white beard and long white hair.

“Mr. Brandstetter?” He twitched a smile of white dentures through the whiskers. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” He stopped the chair, peered fearfully through the gates, up and down the street, then set the rifle aside and began, with a rattle of keys, to undo padlocks that held thick chains in place where the two gates came together. “I have no one to help me right now. The television tells me constantly that unemployment today is a national disaster, yet no one seems to want to work.”

“How much do you want to pay?” Dave asked.

“Ah-ha! You’ve put your finger on it, haven’t you?” The last of the chains rattled and hung loose. “They think I’m rich.” He scraped a key around on the lockplate of the gates. The hand that held the key was bones under dry, brown-spotted skin, and the hand was not steady. “They want ten dollars an hour, don’t they? And if they can’t have ten dollars an hour, they’d rather steal, thank you.” Gifford cranked the key around in the lock. “I’m talking about the blacks, of course. The Hispanics already have jobs. They know what real hunger is. There are no food stamps in Mexico.” Gifford caused the chair to move a couple of feet. His breath came in gasps as he dragged at something inside the gates. A bar. The sound of it said it was thick and heavy. “There, now.” Gifford picked up the rifle and backed the chair out of the way. “Just push, please.”

Dave pushed. Sirens went off. Bells clamored. The old man in the grape hat grinned and yelled something. Dave couldn’t make it out. Gifford pointed a bony finger at the Jaguar. He made a summoning gesture with a skinny arm. Dave ran out to the car, got inside, fumbled to get the key into the ignition. He waited for Gifford to roll to the side of the drive, out of the way, then pulled the Jaguar through the gates. He jumped out of the car and ran to slam the gates shut. The sirens and the bells ceased. Except inside his head. Up at the house, the big dogs raved. Dave closed the padlocks on the chains, and slid the bar across. Gifford wheeled up and turned the key in the lock again.

“I’m not rich,” he said. “No way in the world can I pay a servant eighty dollars a day. I’m lucky to have a roof over my head.” He pushed his clump of keys into the pocket of a raveled brown cardigan sweater and turned the chair so that he faced Dave. “Mother always warned me I would someday regret my riotous youth. I do regret it—but not in the way she meant. I certainly do not regret the riotousness.” The motor of the chair whined. It rolled up the drive toward the house that rose high and white among the trees. “I regret the days when I lacked the imagination to get up to anything riotous.” He stopped the chair and half turned it back. “Come along. I’m delighted to have a visitor.”