Sailor & Lula (35 page)

Elmer knew that he and Alma Ann could have lived happily ever after had she not been worked to death by Hershel Burt and Emile, who would have also worked him to death had Elmer not executed them. He hoped with all of his might that this boy Pace would be worthy of his friendship and not be like the boy who accompanied the Chinese brother to the sea. Elmer put down
The Five Chinese Brothers
and looked at Pace. The boy's eyes were open. Elmer stopped twirling his foot.

“You gonna let me go home to my mama?” Pace asked.

Elmer remembered what the judge had said to the Chinese brothers.

“It's only fair,” he said.

Pace sat up. “Can I go right now?”

“Problem is,” said Elmer, “I don't know I can trust you yet.”

“Trust me how?”

“To come back.”

Pace stared at Elmer's pale blue eyes.

“You're crazy, mister,” he said.

“Alma Ann said I weren't, and she knows better'n you.”

Pace looked around the room.

“Guess the door's locked, huh?”

Elmer nodded. “I don't guess.”

“So I'm a prisoner.”

Elmer started twirling his cap on his right foot.

“You'n me is gonna be perfect friends.”

“Holy Jesus,” said Pace.

Elmer shook his head. “Jesus is bunk.”

“I just couldn't handle it, peanut, seein' you and Pace so sudden after all them years livin' on nothin' 'cept hope. Reality's a killer, Lula, you know? That's why I run from you like I done. Been six months now, though, and I'm gettin' used to bein' outside the walls. Might be I'm more ready to deal with things the way they are, includin' you'n Pace.”

“If we ever find him.”

“We'll find him sweetheart. Ain't no kidnapper gonna keep our fam'ly apart. After all, we're together again, even though the circumstances is rotten.”

It was nine A.M. and Sailor and Lula were sitting at the kitchen table in Beany and Bob Lee's house having coffee. They'd been awake most of the night, not talking very much, mostly just holding and looking at one another and crying. They'd finally fallen asleep in each other's arms, fully clothed, emotionally exhausted, on the living-room floor. Lance had awakened them about an hour ago, shaking Lula, saying, “Y'all can use my bed, Aunt Lula. I'm up.” The telephone rang and Beany came into the kitchen from the laundry room and answered it.

“Boyle home.”

She listened for a few seconds, then handed the phone to Lula.

“Police, for you.”

“This is Lula Fortune. Yes, Detective Fange, of course we can. My boy's daddy's here now, he'll be comin' with us. Soon as possible, I understand. Bye.”

She handed the phone back to Beany, who hung it up.

“Detective Fange wants us to come down to the police station, Beany, see if we can recognize any faces in their suspect books we mighta noticed in the park.”

“I'll go next door right now, make sure Tandy Flowers can watch the kids.”

A half hour later Sailor, Lula, and Beany were on their way to New Orleans police headquarters in Beany's red 1988 Toyota Cressida station wagon. Sailor and Lula sat in the backseat, holding hands and not
talking, while Beany drove. She took Bonnabel Boulevard to Metairie Road, turned left and followed it west into Orleans Parish until they hit the Interstate, which she seldom used, preferring to drive on surface streets; but today was different, they were in a hurry, so Beany braved the truck traffic and headed downtown on Highway 10.

“You don't have to come in, Sailor, you don't want to,” Lula said, after Beany had parked the wagon and they were walking across the street to the station. “No need for you to be uncomfortable.”

“It's okay, Lula. These kinda cops ain't much compared to them old boys at Huntsville. In there you blink more'n twice a hour and the man figures that's one too many, he'll lay your head open quicker'n grain goes through a pigeon. I'll be fine, honey, thanks for thinkin' of it.”

Detective Fange gave Beany and Lula several large books of mug shots to look through. Sailor sat next to them at the table, thinking that he might recognize one or two men he'd known in North Carolina or Texas prisons. Fange was a short, stout, dark-haired man in his mid-forties. He had a deep triangular crease in the center of his forehead that twitched every few seconds, and he had a habit of smiling briefly after he spoke a sentence.

“You even think you seen one of these fellas in Audubon Park, you holler, right?” said Fange, punctuating this order by exposing his tobacco-stained teeth for a half-second.

The two women nodded.

“I'll be in my office, two doors down, you need me.”

After Fange had gone, Beany said, “That triangle on his forehead? That's right where the third eye is.”

“Third eye?” said Lula. “What are you talkin' about?”

“It's the mystical one allows a person to see into the soul. Read about it when I was pregnant with Madonna Kim.”

“Beany, I just ain't up for that strange shit right now. Let's go over these faces.”

Beany and Lula looked carefully at each photo, full-face and profile of every man and a few women, but recognized none of them. Sailor didn't see anyone he knew until they were halfway through the final book.

“I know him,” he said, pointing to a particularly ugly white man who looked a lot like former President of the United States Lyndon Baines
Johnson. “He bunked in Walls Unit at Huntsville, same as me. Afton Abercrombie, that's him. Everybody called him LBJ, 'cause of the resemblance. He hated bein' called that since he was convinced it was LBJ allowed the Mafia to assassinate John F. Kennedy in Texas. Claimed Johnson was in cahoots with the Dallas organized crime people who done it. Abercrombie's kind of a nut about the subject, reads all the books come out concernin' the case. Says Crazy Eyes Santos had a lot to do with it, too.”

“What was he in for?” Beany asked, pointing to Abercrombie's picture.

“Multiple rape and attempted murder, I believe. Liked to screw old ladies,
real
old ladies, like in their eighties. He'd get jobs as a janitor or nurse's aide in nursin' homes and attack old women couldn't defend theirselves. Said most of 'em didn't complain, half of 'em bein' senile and not knowin' what was goin' on, and the other half thankful for the attention. What done Abercrombie in was rapin' a dyin' woman hooked up to some breathin' device. Tubes come loose durin' the assault that set off a signal and the nurses caught him in the act.”

“One real sick puppy,” said Beany.

“No doubt about it,” Sailor said. “Abercrombie jacked off a dozen times a day, dreamin' about old ladies. Good poker player, though.”

After they'd finished looking through the books, Beany and Lula stopped into Detective Fange's office. He looked up from his desk and the triangle on his forehead twitched.

“No luck, hey, ladies?” he said.

Lula shook her head no.

“What now?” she asked.

“We got bulletins out about the boy, and officers showin' copies of the photo of him you give us. Any information turns up, I'll let you know.”

“We're gonna keep searchin' ourselves,” said Sailor.

“Expect you would,” said Fange. “Let's hope Pace just walks in the door tonight askin' what's for supper. Happens sometimes.”

Detective Fange gave a quick smile and returned his attention to the papers on his desk. Sailor took Lula and Beany by the arm and led them to the elevator.

Perdita Durango was sitting in Poppy Papavero's blue BMW in front of the building when Sailor and the two women came out. She was waiting for Poppy, who had told her he had to drop into the police station for a minute in order to renew his hunting license. Poppy had laughed after he said this, and told her to leave the motor running. Perdita dipped her head as soon as she spotted Sailor, hoping he wouldn't look in her direction. He guided his female companions across the street without turning toward Perdita, and she relaxed as she watched him climb into the backseat of a red station wagon and drive away. She wanted to follow Sailor and find out where he was staying. He was the only person alive who could link her to the robbery attempt more than ten years before in Texas. Perdita thought about this while she waited for Poppy. There was only one thing to do, she decided, and that was to kill Sailor.

“Thanks for waiting, sugar,” said Poppy, as he got into the car. “Eddie Fange's one serious coonass, but he's dependable as trouble. He sure is upset about this kidnapping case, though, I can tell.”

Poppy steered the BMW into traffic.

“What case is that?”

“A ten-year-old boy was kidnapped out of Audubon Park. Here, Eddie gave me a photograph.”

Poppy took the picture out of the left breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to Perdita.

“Boy's name and address are on the back,” he said. “Some Short Eyes got him, I bet. Those are the scum of the planet. They ought to be shot on the spot and their bodies fed to the gators.”

Perdita read the name, Pace Roscoe Ripley, and the address, 833 Charity Street, Metairie, Louisiana. She memorized the address and handed the photo back to Poppy.

“Yes,” she said, “that's terrible.”

“You partial at all to hummin'birds?” asked Elmer.

“What you mean, ‘partial'?” said Pace.

Elmer Désespéré sat in the cane chair twirling his engineer's cap on the toes of his city-dirt-blackened right foot.

“Mean, do you like 'em.”

Pace rested on his elbows, dangling his legs over the edge of the narrow bed.

“Ain't seen many, but I suppose. They just birds.”

Elmer bared his mossy teeth. “One time Alma Ann and me spotted a Cuban Emerald,” he said, and shifted the cap to his equally soiled left foot. “Alma Ann had her a bird book said that kinda hummin'bird don't naturally get no further north'n South Florida. But we seen it hoverin' over a red lily at Solange Creek. Alma Ann said it musta been brought up by someone to Louisiana 'cause it was too far for it to've strayed.”

“What color was it?”

“Green, mostly, like a emerald, and gold.”

“You ever seen a emerald?”

“No, but they's green, I guess, which is why the bird's called that.”

“What's Cuban about it?”

Elmer frowned and let the hat fall off his foot.

“This'n's special, Alma Ann said. Ain't no other bird like it over the world.”

“My mama and me had us a bird, but it died.”

Elmer's eyes opened wide. “What kind?”

“Parakeet. It was blue with a white patch on the head. His name was Pablo.”

“How'd he die?”

Pace shrugged. “We just found him one mornin' lyin' on his side on the floor of his cage. I took him out and looked in his mouth.”

“Why'd you do that?”

“What the doctor always does to me when I'm sick, so I done it to Pablo.”

“See anythin'?”

“Not real much. Pulled out his tongue with my mama's eyebrow tweezer. It was pink.”

“You bury him?”

“Uh-uh. Mama wrapped Pablo in a ripped-up dishtowel and put him in the freezer.”

“Why'd she do that?”

“We was gonna burn him later, but we forgot. Mama says throwin' a body on a fire's the only way to purify it and set free the soul. The kind of Indians they got in India do it, Mama says. But we just forgot Pablo was in the freezer till a bunch of time later when Mama was cleanin' it out and found the dishtowel all iced up. She run hot water over it and unrolled it and there was Pablo, blue as always.”

“What'd she do?”

“Stuffed him down the disposal and ground him up.”

Elmer whistled through his green teeth. “Don't guess that done heck for his soul.”

Pace lay back on the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I reckon his soul had pretty well froze solid by then,” he said.

“If I ever had a Cuban Emerald died on me, I wouldn't burn it, or stuff it in no disposal, neither. I'd eat it.”

Pace closed his eyes. “The beak, too? Bird beaks is awful sharp.”

“Yes, I believe I would. I'd swallow it beak and all, so my insides'd glow emerald green.”

“Don't know how I ever coulda thought you was crazy, Elmer. I apologize.”

Elmer nodded. “ 'Preciate it.”

Santos looked in the mirror over the washbasin in the restroom of his office on the top floor of the Bayou Enterprises building on Airline Highway in Kenner and adjusted his hairpiece. He used a wet tissue to scrub off the excess mucilage that had trickled down and dried on his forehead. Santos took off his yellow-framed dark glasses and stared at himself. He hated the nickname Crazy Eyes, but he had to agree with the old Don, Pietro Pericolo, who had given it to him when he was the Don's driver, that his eyes were indeed very strange. The red pupils spun and danced inside the green irises, which were surrounded by yellow sparks. Santos put his sunglasses back on. The old Don had been dead for many years now, and Marcello still missed him. Don Pericolo had kept his word and made certain that Santos was in position to take over the organization when the stomach cancer claimed him. On his deathbed, the old Don had motioned for Santos to come closer, and whispered in his ear, “
Che cosa viene appresso,
Marcello?” Then Don Pericolo had died, his last taste of life softly settling on Santos's face.