Southern Cross (12 page)

The first time the Lemans slowly rolled by, its muffler was dragging the pavement and making a terrible noise, sparks flying as if the car were a match trying to light the street.

The bass was up so high the night throbbed worse than Weed’s head, and he had scraped both palms when he dove into a ditch just in time. He had peeked through weeds and made out four people jumping around to the rap inside the car. One of them turned to look back as she drank out of a bottle. Weed had realized with horror that Divinity, Beeper, Sick and Dog were in that car and probably looking for him.

It was past ten the second time Weed heard the awful rumble of the souped-up engine and the clanging of the muffler and the boom-boom of the bass coming from a distance. He vaulted over a wall and crouched behind a spruce on the property of some rich person who lived in a brick mansion with big white pillars.

The Pikes disappeared down the road. Weed waited a good five minutes before he came out of hiding. He climbed back over the wall at the precise moment a small sports car purred around the bend, its high beams on and pinning Weed against the night like a moth against a window.

B
UBBA WAS TOO
busy to take so much as one sip of Tang, which had been room temperature when Honey had spitefully filled his thermos, and therefore would still be room temperature if he ever had time to drink it. There wasn’t the slightest chance Bubba would make it to the break room to microwave his Taco Bell Lunchable, which Honey had not ruined because she couldn’t.

Bubba had not a moment to think about the Icehouse or Molson Golden or Foster’s Lager filling the refrigerator in the mud room, waiting for him when he finally rolled in, exhausted, around half past seven every morning except Tuesday and Wednesday, his days off. Bubba did not eat, drink or smoke anything that wasn’t Philip Morris. He would have bought nothing but Philip Morris stock if he didn’t spend so much on its products and his Jeep and tools.

Bubba Fluck’s feelings were lacerated to the point of rage. He was being treated like shit as he tried like hell to speed things along in Bay 8. Sure, there had been a lot of rejects flying into the bins on the floor, destined for the ripper room, where they would be fed into a machine, the precious tobacco separated from the paper and reclaimed.
Bubba refused to accept defeat. He figured if three shifts could crank out thirty million packs of cigarettes every twenty-four hours, then he, by God, could whip out an extra half a million cigarettes or twenty-five thousand packs before shift change.

Bubba worked like one possessed, dashing back and forth between the computer and the maker. When the resistance to draw got a little too close to the red line, Bubba was right there making the adjustment. He intuitively knew when he was going to run out of glue and made sure the attendant pulled up the cart early. When the tipping paper broke again, Bubba spooled it back through the air channel, up into the feed rollers, threaded it into the garnisher and hit reset in a record thirty-one seconds.

When the paper broke another time, he realized he had dull knives in the cutting head and summoned a fixer to take care of the problem. Bubba sweated through more lost minutes and worked even faster to make up the time. He ran three hours without another mishap, without stopping, and by four
A
.
M
., the production report on the computer screen showed Bubba was only 21,350 dual rods, or less than two minutes, behind Bay 5.

Production supervisor Betty Council monitored quality and oversaw fixers and electricians, and coordinated shifts. She had been keeping her eye on Bubba for weeks because he seemed to have more technical problems than any of the other operators. Gig Dan had told her he was getting fed up with him.

“How are we doing?” she called out to Bubba as the vacuum in the maker sucked blended tobacco down, and rods formed almost faster than the eye could follow.

Bubba was too busy to answer.

“You don’t have to kill yourself,” said Council, who was on her way to being promoted again because she was smart, hardworking, and several months ago had increased production three percent by encouraging competition among the bays.

“I’m fine,” Bubba said as rods were glued, cut, plucked
into the transfer drum, carried to another knife and flipper, then to another drum. Plugs from the plug hopper were cut and married to the rods.

“I’m absolutely amazed,” she yelled above the roar and strike of machines. “You and Smudge are almost neck and neck.”

Brazil stepped on the gas in pursuit of the kid half-falling and zigzagging on the side of the road. It was commonly accepted in policing that if a subject was running, usually there was a reason. Brazil rolled down his window.

“What’s going on?” he called out as he drove and the kid continued to dash about.

“Nothing,” the kid gasped, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around as fear propelled his Nikes.

“Something is, or you wouldn’t be running,” Brazil called back. “Stop so I can talk to you!”

“Can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Uh-uh.”

Brazil pulled off the road ahead of him and jumped out. The kid was exhausted and intoxicated. He was wearing a Bulls jersey and looked vaguely familiar, even in the dark.

“Leave me alone!” he screamed as Brazil grabbed him by the back of his jersey. “I didn’t do nothing!”

“Whoa,” Brazil said. “Calm down. Wait a minute. I’ve met you before. You’re that kid at Godwin, the artist. A different sort of name. What was it . . . ?
Week? Wheeze?”

“I’m not telling you nothing!” The kid was heaving, sweat shining on his face and dripping off his chin.

Brazil looked around, wondering, listening. He didn’t see anyone else. There was no burglar alarm hammering anywhere, the road dark, the night silent.

“Weed,” he suddenly remembered. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“No it ain’t,” Weed said.

“Yeah, it is. I’m sure of it. I’m Andy Brazil.”

“You’re that cop who came to school,” Weed accused him.

“Something wrong with that?” Brazil asked.

“So how come you’re out here in a BMW?” Weed demanded to know.

“A better question is how come you’re drunk and running like a maniac?”

Weed looked up to where the moon would be, were it not covered in clouds.

“I’m taking you home,” Brazil said.

“You can’t make me,” Weed defied him, his words slurring and knocking one another down.

“Sure I can.” Brazil laughed. “You’re drunk in public. You’re a juvenile. You can either come downtown or I’m taking you to your house, and if I were you, I’d choose the latter and take some aspirin and go to bed.”

Weed was thinking. A U-Haul truck rumbled past, then a station wagon. Weed was still thinking, wiping his face on his sleeve. A VW Rabbit buzzed by, then a Jeep that reminded Brazil of CABBAGES. Brazil shrugged and walked over to his car. He opened his door.

“I’ll call a unit to come take you downtown,” he said. “I’m not hauling prisoners in my personal car.”

“You said you’d drive me home in it,” Weed countered. “Now you saying you ain’t.”

“I said I’m not hauling your butt downtown.”

Brazil shut his door.

Weed yanked open the passenger’s door and slid onto the leather seat. He fastened his shoulder harness and didn’t say a word. Brazil pulled back onto West Cary.

“What’s your real name?” Brazil asked him.

“Weed.”

“How’d you end up with a name like that, huh?”

“I dunno.” Weed stared down at his untied hightops.

“Sure you do.”

“My daddy works for the city.”

“And?” Brazil encouraged him.

“Cuttin’ grass and stuff. Pullin’ weeds. Called me Weed ’cause he said I’d grow like one.”

Instantly he was humiliated and alarmed. It was obvious he had never grown like a weed, and he had told the cop
way too much. He watched the cop write down
Weed
on a little notepad. Shit! If the cop figured out Weed was a Pike, Weed would die. Smoke would see to that.

“What’s your last name?” Brazil then asked.

“Jones,” Weed lied.

Brazil wrote this down, too.

“What’s the five for?”

“Huh?”

“The five tattooed on your finger.”

Fear turned to panic. Weed’s mind went blank.

“I don’t got no tattoo,” he stupidly said.

“Yeah? Then what am I looking at?”

Weed examined one hand, then the other as if he had never taken a good look at himself before this moment. He stared at the 5 and rubbed it with his thumb.

“It don’t mean nothing,” he said. “I just did it, you know?”

“But why the number five?” Brazil persisted. “You picked it for a reason.”

Weed was beginning to shake. If the cop figured out that 5 was Weed’s slave number, one thing might lead to another.

“It’s my lucky number,” Weed said as sweat trickled from his armpits, down his sides, beneath his Bulls colors.

Brazil fiddled with the CD player, jumping around from Mike & The Mechanics to Elton John before deciding on Enya.

“Man, how you listen to that?” Weed finally said.

“What about it?”

“It ain’t got nothing to it. No good drums or cymbals or words that mean something.”

“Maybe the words mean something to me,” Brazil answered him. “Maybe I don’t care about drums or cymbals.”

“Oh yeah?” Weed got mad. “You’re just saying that because I play cymbals and pretty soon gonna learn drums.”

“You mind telling me where we’re going?” Brazil said. “Or is it a secret.”

“I bet you don’t know nothing about cymbals.” Weed’s logic was fading in and out, the dark smooth ride sedating him further. “We’re in the Azalea Parade, too.”

“I know you have to live somewhere near Godwin or you couldn’t go to school there.” Brazil was getting increasingly frustrated.

Weed was falling asleep. He smelled bad and Brazil still didn’t know why the kid had been out on the street drunk and running as if Jack the Ripper were after him. Brazil reached over and gently shook him. Weed practically jumped through the roof.

“No!”
he screamed.

Brazil turned on the light above the visor and took a long hard look at Weed. Brazil noticed that the number 5 on his right index finger was crude and puffy.

“Tell me where you live,” Brazil said firmly. “Wake up, Weed, and tell me.”

“Henrico Doctor.”

“The hospital?”

“Uh huh.”

“You live near Henrico Doctors’ Hospital?”

“Uh huh. My head hurts so bad.”

“That’s not in Godwin’s district.”

“My daddy live in the district. My mama don’t.”

“Well, who are you going home to, Weed? Your mother or your dad?”

“I don’t hardly ever go near him. Just now and then, maybe a weekend every two months so he can go out and leave me alone, which is all right by me.”

“What street does your mother live on?”

“Forest and Skipwith. I can show you.” Weed’s tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth.

Brazil plucked Weed’s right hand out of his lap.

“What’d you go and get a tattoo for?” he said again. “Somebody talk you into that?”

“A lotta people get ’em.” Weed pulled his hand away.

“Looks to me like you just got it,” Brazil said. “Maybe even today.”

A
PPARENTLY
G
OVERNOR
F
EUER
and his party had gone on to other courses and conversations. They had yet to emerge from La Petite France, and Roop was tired of waiting. He decided he might as well gather a little intelligence on the fish problem and dialed Hammer’s home number, thanks to Fling, who had stupidly given it to Roop.

“Hammer,” she answered.

“Artis Roop here.”

“How are you doing, Artis?”

“I guess you’re wondering how I got your home number . . .”

“It’s in the phone book,” Hammer said.

“Right. Listen, Chief Hammer, I’m looking into this fish spill business . . .”

“Fish spill?” she sounded alarmed. “Who told you about a fish spill?”

“I can’t reveal my sources. But if there’s a fish spill, I do think the public needs to know for its own protection, or if for no other reason, so they can choose alternate routes for work in the morning.”

“There is no fish spill that I know of,” Hammer answered firmly.

“Then what are people talking about?”

“This is simply a housekeeping matter you’re referring to, Artis.”

“I don’t understand.”

Roop was getting anxious as the door to the restaurant remained closed with no sign of activity. It suddenly occurred to him that the governor might try escaping through the service entrance. Maybe he had already gone. Roop unplugged the phone from the cigarette lighter and scrambled out of the car, still talking.

“How can fish or a fish spill be an internal matter?” he persisted.

“A computer glitch,” she replied.

“Oh,” he said, baffled. “I still don’t get it. Is fish some sort of virus?”

“We hope not,” said Hammer, who was always straightforward unless she refused to comment.

“So the COMSTAT telecommunications system is down?” Roop got to the raw nerve of the matter.

Hammer hesitated, then said, “At the moment.”

“Everywhere?”

“I have nothing more to say,” Hammer flatly replied.

Roop was certain the fish problem was big. But he also had other fish to fry. Executive Protection Unit state police officers were coming out of La Petite France, the governor not far behind. Camera lights and flash guns fired from all sides, the governor gracious and unflappable, as was his wife, because they were used to this shit. Roop listened to
governor this
and
governor that
and was pleased that Feuer had no comment. Roop casually strolled over to Jed, the governor’s EPU driver.

“I don’t want to bother him,” Roop said. “I feel sort of sorry for him being bothered like this all the time. Can’t even eat dinner without everyone stalking him.”

“I wish everybody else felt like that,” Jed said.

“How the hell do you park that thing?” said Roop as he looked over every curve and inch of the gleaming black stretch Lincoln limousine.

Jed laughed as if it were nothing.

“I mean, really,” Roop went on as the governor and his wife were briskly escorted to the car. “I couldn’t be a driver to begin with. I get lost everywhere. You know how hard it is to roll up on a crime scene when you don’t know where the hell you are?”

Roop had gathered intelligence on Jed, who was known by all, except the governor, to be directionally compromised and deceitful about it.

“You’re kidding?” said Jed as he opened the back door for the first family and they climbed inside.

“Good evening, Governor and Mrs. Feuer,” Roop bent over to politely say.

“And to you,” replied the governor, who was a very gracious man if you could get to him.

“I saw you on
Meet the Press,”
Roop said.

“Oh, did you?”

“Yes, governor. You were great. Thank God someone’s sticking up for the tobacco industry,” Roop gushed.

“It’s common sense,” said Feuer. “Personally, I don’t smoke. But I believe it’s a choice. Nobody forces it on anybody, and unemployment and black market cigarettes are not a happy prospect.”

“Next it will be alcohol,” Roop said with righteous indignation.

“Not if I have a say about it.”

“There’ll be smokes instead of stills,
governor,” Roop pitched the line that he believed would win him a Pulitzer Prize.

“I like that,” Feuer said.

“So do I,” said the first lady.

“Smokes.”
Governor Feuer smiled wryly. “As if ATF doesn’t have enough to do. By the way,” he said to Roop, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

The small house around the corner from Henrico Doctors’ Hospital was brick with freshly painted blue shutters, and a well-cared-for yard. The driveway was gravel. There was
no car. Brazil pulled in, small white rocks pinging under the BMW. He deliberated over what to do.

“When does your mom come home?” he asked Weed.

“She’s home.” Weed was a little more alert.

“She doesn’t own a car?”

“Yes she does.”

“It’s not here,” Brazil said. “It doesn’t look to me like she’s home.”

“Oh.” Weed sat up straighter and stared out the windshield, his fingers on the door handle. “I want to go to bed. I’m tired. Just let me out now, okay?”

“Weed, where does your mother work?” Brazil persisted.

He was eager to go home and call it a day, too, but he felt very uneasy about leaving this evasive little kid alone.

“She works at the hospital,” Weed said, opening the door. “She does stuff in the operating room.”

“She a nurse?”

“I don’t think so. But she could be here about midnight.”

“Could?”

“Sometimes she’s gone longer. She works real hard ’cause what she makes is all we got, and my daddy gambles a lot and got us bad in debt. I wanna go to bed. Thanks for the ride. I never been in a car this nice.”

Officer Brazil drove off the minute Weed locked the front door. He looked around the empty living room, wishing his mother was home and glad she wasn’t. There was leftover meat loaf and cold cuts, and Weed wasn’t sure if eating would make things better or worse. He gave it a try, grilling a ham and cheese sandwich, which helped calm down his stomach.

He went down the hall, pausing to open the door to Twister’s bedroom. Weed stared at all the basketball trophies and posters, the bed unmade, throw rug rumpled, University of Richmond tee shirt on the floor, the computer on the desk with its Bad Dog screen saver. Everything was exactly the way Twister had left it the last time
he had been in his room, August 23, a Sunday, the last time Weed had ever seen him alive.

Weed wandered inside and imagined he could smell Twister’s Obsession cologne and hear his laughter and teasing talk. He envisioned Twister sitting in the middle of the floor, long muscular legs folded up as he put on his shoes and called Weed his “little minute.”

“See, it takes sixty of those to make an hour,” he would say. “Now I know you can’t add worth shit, but trust me on this one. Soon you’ll be an hour, then a day, then a week, then a month. And you’ll be big like me.”

“No I won’t,” said Weed. “You was twice as big as me when you was my age.”

Then Twister would unfold himself and start dribbling an invisible basketball. He would take on Weed, faking left and right, keeping the ball tight against him, elbows going this way and that.

“Time’s running out on the clock and I got just one
little minute!”
Twister would laugh as he snatched up Weed and dunked him on the bed, bouncing him up and down until Weed was dizzy with delight.

Weed walked over to the desk and sat down. He turned on the computer, the only thing he ever touched inside his brother’s room, because Twister had taught Weed how to use the computer and Weed knew Twister would want him to keep using it. Weed logged onto AOL. He sent e-mail to Twister’s mailbox and checked to see if anybody else had.

Other than the notes Twister got daily from Weed, there was nothing else.

Hi Twister

You reading my letters? They ain’t been opened, but I bet you don’t have to open them the way other people do. I ain’t changed nothing in your room. Mama don’t come in it. She always keeps the door shut.

Weed waited for an instant message. He somehow believed that one of these days Twister was going to contact Weed through the computer. He was going to say,
What’s ticking, little minute? I sure am glad you’re writing me. I see everything you’re doing so you better be keeping your ass straight.

Weed waited and waited. He logged off and turned out the light. He stood in the doorway for a while, too depressed to move. He wandered into his bedroom and set the alarm clock for 2:45
A
.
M
.

“Why you not here?” he said to Twister.

The dark had no answer.

“Why you not here, Twister! I don’t know what to do no more, Twister. Mama quit coming home, works so much it’s like she got hit on the head or something. Just sleeps and gets up and goes. She hardly talks no more ever since you went on. Daddy gives her a real hard time and now I got Smoke. He might kill me, Twister. He wouldn’t if you was here.”

Weed went to sleep talking to Twister. Weed slept hard, his head full of cruel dreams. He was being chased by a garbage truck that made horrible scraping sounds as it rumbled down a dark road looking for him. It was on his tail no matter which way he went. He was sweating, his heart hammering when the alarm clock buzzed. He snatched it from the bedside table and turned it off. He listened, hardly breathing, hoping his mother was still asleep.

He turned on the light and quickly dressed. He went over to the small card table beneath the window and sat down to think about what he would need to paint the metal statue, and wishing he could have come right out and told Officer Brazil what was going on and why he had the tattoo. But Weed knew Smoke would get him. Somehow he would.

The big question was whether Weed should use oils or acrylics. He rummaged through shelves of his precious art supplies, lovingly looking through the Bob Ross master paint set his mother had worked overtime to buy for him last Christmas. It had cost almost eighty dollars, and included eight tubes of oil paint, four brushes and a Getting Started videotape which Mrs. Grannis had let Weed watch at school since he didn’t have a VCR.

Weed opened the caps of sap green, cadmium yellow and alizarin crimson. He looked through his Demco Collegiate set and thought about how long it took oil paints to dry and how much cleaning up he’d have to do. He didn’t want to smell like turpentine.

He studied his tubes of Apple Barrel acrylic gloss enamel paints. He had forty-six colors to choose from, but to really get a good effect he needed to sand the statue first and apply two coats. That would take forever, and in truth, the last thing Weed wanted was to do something to a statue. If nothing else, God would do something to Weed. Messing with the statue of someone famous would be as bad as painting graffiti on a church or putting a mustache on Jesus.

Weed came up with a daring plan. Maybe he could use poster paints. He had bags full of them. They were inexpensive and didn’t make a mess. In fact, they could be washed off with soap and water, but there was no way Smoke could know that when Weed was painting away.

Weed had never used water-based tempera on metal, and tried a little green on the metal trash basket in his room. He was thrilled and a little surprised when the paint went on smooth and stuck. He gathered every jar he had and stuffed them inside his knapsack and a grocery bag. He dug through his box of perfectly clean paintbrushes and decided on two aquarelle for thin lines and two wash/mops for broad washes. He threw in one Academy size 14 round style just in case.