Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

The Road to Memphis by L. A. Wilson, Jr.

Travis Redmond awakened to the heat of the midday sun whose rays had burned through the early morning mist. Its blinding brilliance ravished his face for several minutes, causing him to shift his position in an effort to avoid the discomfort. He rolled his shoulder against the unexpected hardness of the adjacent wall and flinched in response to an intense pain followed by a shaking chill. He reached for a blanket that was not there. A sticky wetness on his skin disturbed and perplexed him. He strained against heavy eyelids and was assailed by the realization that he was not in bed but lying on concrete in a pool of blood — his blood.

Memphis Red watched Ray Mayweather from across the dimly lit expanse of the musty dance hall. They called it The Pines — a glorified juke joint just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. The forlorn twang of country rhythms reverberated off the walls. Ray was draping himself over a melancholy blonde woman who seemed less than thrilled to be the object of his affection.

He waited until the beer began needling Ray’s bladder to make his move.

“What would it take for a woman like you to dance with an old cowboy like me?” he asked.

The woman’s eyes smiled upward at him, and she teased him with contrived reluctance.

“You ain’t no cowboy,” she chuckled. “And you damn sure ain’t old.”

“Will you dance with me anyway?”

“I’m waiting on somebody,” she replied softly, as a barely perceptible shadow seemed to creep into her mood.

“That beer will keep him peeing for the next half hour. The song will be over by then.”

Her smile returned and quickly progressed into a laugh as she took his hand and stood.

The woman settled in against him more quickly than he had expected. She molded the full length of her body to his as they swayed to the mournful strains of the music.

“Doesn’t that fellow know that you’re too beautiful to be left alone?”

“You trying to come on to me?” she asked playfully.

“Yeah.”

“Hmmmph, just asking,” she replied.

“What the hell are you doin’!?”

The unexpected outburst unnerved the woman, and she turned anxious eyes toward its source. Ray Mayweather stood in the middle of the dance floor, wavering unsteadily from the effects of his last ten beers. She stiffened and moved away from Memphis. Her face tightened at Ray’s abrupt hostility.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Ray asked again. “Get the hell away from him!”

Ray savagely grasped the woman’s arm.

That was all that Memphis needed. He grabbed Ray’s right wrist and twisted it until he heard the bone pop. Ray howled in pain, but Memphis wouldn’t release his arm. He twisted it back under his shoulder blade, forcing Ray to the floor. As he crumpled, Memphis straightened the arm and forced it across his knee. It either broke or dislocated at the elbow, not that it mattered. He wasn’t through yet. He seized the helpless man’s left arm and dragged him back to his knees. Ray could only moan in protest. Memphis jerked him harshly, then tried to sling him across the dance floor. He landed on his face with both arms twisted at awkward and unnatural angles.

“You want me to go with you?” the woman asked as Memphis walked away.

“Hell no.” Memphis’s answer was terse and unemotional. The response had been calculated, and he didn’t bother to look at her again as he walked out into the warm Carolina night. He had done everything he needed to do for the moment.

“Memphis Red, hmmph.” Rufus Johnson looked the well-dressed redhead up and down. “When did you start callin’ yourself that? I remember folks callin’ you Ahoskie Red.”

“Things change,” Memphis replied.

“I guess they do,” Rufus observed as he scrutinized Memphis’s expensive suit. “I guess Ahoskie was too small a town to be the nickname of an important gentleman like you, or did it tell too much about you? Why you wanna know about Angus Haynes anyway?”

“Just curious.”

“Sure, Angus Haynes killed his wife. Beat her to death in broad daylight right in front of the courthouse.”

“How’d he get away with that?” Memphis unconsciously brushed the lint from the lapels of his double-breasted suit as he spoke.

“Everybody said she fell down the steps and hit her head,” Rufus answered.

“Everybody?” Memphis’s intense green eyes seemed to question Rufus’s veracity.

“Killin’ women and niggers ain’t never been a serious crime down here, Red. Killin’ don’t mean nothin’ unless you kill somebody important. What’s it to you anyway?”

“It’s nothing to me, but hell, it’s 1958. Times are changing. It ought to be important to all of y’all who have to live down here with his sorry ass.”

“Like that don’t happen up in New York.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you need to get your ass back to New York,” Rufus suggested. “Ain’t nothin’ for you down here but trouble, and if you get in trouble you won’t have no friends — not the law, the church, lawyers, nobody.”

Memphis turned to meet Rufus’s eyes again.

“What about you, Rufus?”

“I ain’t got no white friends, Red,” he answered succinctly. Memphis nodded his understanding of the remark. For a fleeting second he considered making a retort, but it would have been wasted. Being colored in the South required survival skills, and picking friends wisely was an essential part of it.

“Hello, cowboy.”

Memphis stood in response to the soft intrusion of the female voice before looking for its owner.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” she continued.

“The only restaurant in town,” he explained casually. “Where else you gonna get breakfast?”

His hand made an inviting gesture toward an empty adjacent chair, and she accepted.

“I mean I’m surprised that you’re still in town after what you did to Ray.”

“I don’t suspect that Ray is in any condition to object. Do you?”

“Ray has friends,” the woman said.

“Are you one of them?” he asked.

She smiled at him deceptively without answering.

“Who are you anyway?” she asked. “What’s your name?”

“Memphis.”

She arched her eyebrows in amused surprise.

“That your real name?”

He gave her a noncommittal shrug for an answer.

“You got a last name?”

“Red.”

Her amused smile broke down into an unrestrained laugh.

“Okay, if you say so,” she managed to reply.

“What’s yours?”

“Lena,” she answered. “Lena Haynes.”

A waitress interrupted to take their order, and Memphis welcomed the intervention. He wasn’t big on unplanned encounters. That’s when mistakes could occur, and he couldn’t afford mistakes. He watched Lena surreptitiously as he ate. She seemed so different from her appearance at their initial encounter. She was a pretty woman and appeared far too intelligent to have placed herself in untenable circumstances without a reason. He could tell that she was trying to feel him out, and he remained intentionally circumspect.

“You’re either a very brave man or a fool, Mr. Memphis Red. I haven’t decided which yet.”

“Bravery is a matter of perception,” Memphis replied coolly. “I suspect it takes more courage to associate with a fool than to confront one.”

She absorbed Memphis’s penetrating stare for several seconds, as if trying to discern the meaning of the remark. She finally excused herself as if ultimately concluding that she had been insulted and her presence unwanted. She hesitated after taking a step away as if delayed by an afterthought.

“Sometimes people are compelled to do things for a reason.” She spoke softly and introspectively. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t know about things like that, would you?”

She moved away before he could reply. Memphis took a final sip of coffee. What he knew or didn’t know was nothing he planned to discuss with Lena Haynes for the time being.

Memphis slowly coaxed his car down the tortuous driveway that led to a sprawling ranch-style house nestled in a pine grove about a hundred yards from the highway. He rang the doorbell twice before he was greeted by Lena Haynes’s surprised countenance.

“You’re full of surprises,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you, especially here.”

“May I come in?”

She stepped aside, allowing him to enter the elegantly appointed foyer.

“I’m glad you came,” she volunteered.

It was an admission he hadn’t expected and one that he suspected she hadn’t intended to allow.

“You’re an interesting man, and interesting men are a rarity around here.”

His eyes wouldn’t leave her face. She was appealing even without makeup. He had known that she would be attracted to him. What he wasn’t prepared for was the ripple of emotion that she incited. He hadn’t felt that when looking at a woman for some time.

“Well, what should we do now?”

Her coquettish inquiry alone revealed vulnerabilities that would have ordinarily left him pursuing his advantage. He found himself torn, however, between his wants and his needs, and there was a fire in his gut that made him driven for things other than the obvious.

“I need to see Angus Haynes.”

He watched the darkness descend over her face and regretted instantly the demons that drove him.

She recovered quickly, and a tiny self-deprecating smile played at the corners of her lips, but her disappointment was apparent.

“Well, Mr. Memphis or whoever you are, I was foolish enough to think that I was the source of your interest.”

“You’re not foolish—” he began.

“Spare me,” she interrupted. “Save your platitudes for my father.”

She directed him down a short hallway where Angus Haynes sat in a study laboring over some papers. Angus Haynes languished on the far side of middle age. He regarded Memphis suspiciously as his daughter whispered in his ear. A younger man who appeared as if his duties could only be physical stood nearby and tried to look intimidating as Lena left the room, closing the door behind her.

The young man patted Memphis down and nodded his confirmation that there was no weapon. Haynes still kept his hands hidden behind his desk as he scrutinized Memphis.

“Memphis Red. An unusual name,” Haynes commented. “What is it you think I can do for you?”

“The name’s Travis Redmond. Memphis is just what they call me. I believe you have a job opening.”

The old man laughed, apparently finding Memphis amusing.

“You job hunting? What makes you think I need help?”

“The help you had was piss-poor, unless Ray Mayweather was just one of your charity causes.”

Haynes’s eyes narrowed. Apparently Lena hadn’t told him who had put Ray out of commission.

“You’re a dangerous man, Mr. Redmond. I don’t like dangerous men.”

“Yeah, you do.” Memphis took the liberty of sitting down without being asked. “Besides, I’ve worked for you before, so I figured that you owed me a job among other things.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Haynes’s patience was getting short.

“Vincent Morelli.”

Haynes sat back in his chair without speaking. He stared at Memphis for several seconds while flexing his jaw before moving the pistol in his lap to the top of the desk.

“What do you know about Morelli?” he asked.

“He hired me to help him with a job up in New York.”

“You’re lying,” the old man said. “Morelli only hired niggers. I thought it was a personal failing, but he assured me that there was an advantage to working with a disposable product.”

“You’re wrong. The colored boys could only go so far. That’s what happens when you don’t do your own planning.”

“I’m what they call an enabler, Mr. Redmond. I provide the means. I leave the details to others. Why didn’t Morelli ever mention your name?”

“I guess there was no point if he thought I was dead.”

Memphis’s eyes remained fixed on the gun that lay on the desk between them. Haynes’s henchman had moved beyond his peripheral vision and probably stood behind him. He could only imagine what he was preparing to do.

“He said he had problems,” Haynes continued.

“To say the least. You and Morelli were pretty smart. He ran the game up North then brought the goods down to this little hole in the wall where nobody would ever think to look. Down here in Chitlin’ Switch, North Carolina, you can live like a king.”

The old man smiled an unplanned acknowledgement.

“So what’s your story, Mr. Redmond? What is it that you think Morelli didn’t tell me? What went wrong?”

“The numbers bank was upstairs in a small hotel. It was in Harlem right off Morningside Park. Nightclub on the first level. The thing is, the club was all white — big money, high rollers, plenty of cash. They gambled, bought numbers, dope, whatever. The only thing colored could do was to wait on them. So that was the way in. See, nobody paid any attention to colored boys going in to cook, wait tables, that sort of thing. So we sneaked in with the help that morning. Morelli and me were supposed to be supervisors. We worked our way upstairs where they kept the money, cracked a few heads, and walked away with two hundred fifty grand.”

“Why didn’t you come down with Morelli?”

“Because somebody shot me.”

Memphis watched the old man closely. He had no reaction. He couldn’t tell if it was because he already knew the story or whether he had lived long enough to not be surprised by much of anything anymore.

“I woke up in an alley. The three colored boys were dead, and I should have been. It took a year for me to get back on my feet, Mr. Haynes. Morelli was gone, and it took six months more for me to find out about you.”

“So I’ll bet you’re here for your share of the loot, aren’t you. Of course, I should just hand some money over to you because I have your word that you were in on it.” The sarcasm dripped from Haynes’s lips like a bitter poison.

“You could always ask Morelli,” Memphis suggested.

“Morelli’s dead,” Haynes replied unemotionally.

This time it was Memphis’s turn to appear nonplussed.

“Heard it was a car accident up in New Jersey,” Haynes continued.

“Interesting,” Memphis muttered.

“I think we’re done here, Mr. Redmond. I don’t expect to see you again. Carl can escort you to the door.”

Haynes’s bodyguard took a step in Memphis’s direction.

“Just in case you think we’re a bunch of dumb hicks down here, Mr. Redmond, I think you ought to know that we’re right on the edge of the Dismal Swamp. People get lost in there all the time, you know what I mean.”

Memphis nodded silently as Carl guided him away. He knew exactly what Haynes meant, and he knew a lot more than that.

Lena was standing by the door as he exited. She rolled her eyes at him and turned away. She was a woman who wore a certain amount of pain on her face, and he suspected that she rarely took chances. Some spark between them had caused her to drop her guard, and her perceived disappointment had only served to reinforce her curiosity.

“Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you,” he whispered. “Sometimes you play it safe, and nobody gets anything.” His enigmatic words turned her around. Carl shoved Memphis past her, and her eyes followed him.

“I need a ride back to town, Carl,” she announced abruptly. “I’ll ride with Mr. Red.”

Carl turned and looked past her at Angus Haynes, who fidgeted nervously.

“His name is Redmond, and he has business with Carl,” Haynes explained.

“I have something important I have to do, besides I want to talk to him about something personal. What could you all have to do that’s so important that it can’t wait? Come on, Mr. Redmond. It’s not nice to make a girl beg for a ride.”

She grabbed her purse and Memphis’s arm and pulled him toward his car. Carl stood there perplexed without clear direction from his boss.

Memphis moved quickly to his car. Whatever Haynes’s plans for him had been, he had been reluctant to pursue them in front of his daughter. It was an advantage that might not present itself again and one that he was not about to allow to slip past him.

“You crazy as hell!” Rufus regarded Memphis with open-mouthed astonishment after listening to his plan. “You gon’ carry your ass back to New York after this is over, but I got to stay here and deal with these bastards after you gone.”

“You’ll be able to deal a lot better if everything works out, or you can choose to leave. You’ll have options, Rufus.”

“Options my ass!” Rufus complained. “You’ve had your monkey-ass up there so long, you forgot what it’s like down here. You the one with options. Got that white woman hanging all over you like you got a gold-plated dick. I ain’t got the options that you got.”

“The best option you’ve got is that we’re friends.”

“I told you I ain’t got no...”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Memphis interrupted. “I’ve heard it all before.”

“What you gon’ do with that Haynes gal anyway? You gon’ take her back to Never-Never Land and live happily ever after?”

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

“It ain’t nothin’ to me, but it ought to be something to you. That kind of fairy tale ain’t for folks like us. You trust that woman?” Rufus asked in a more subdued voice.

“I don’t have to trust her. I know her. I’ve seen a hundred women like that. Once you understand their pain, you don’t have to trust them. They’re predictable, and that’s a card in your pocket.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know.” Rufus’s reluctance still didn’t allow him to commit to Memphis.

“If you do this, Rufus, I’ll look out for you. You can count on me. Angus Haynes is a badass, but he ain’t as big a dog as he thinks he is. The crap he told me was all lies. Morelli was just another flunky. Haynes pulled all the strings. Haynes ordered him to kill all of us. It was Morelli who shot me, and he had a reason for it.”

“Did Morelli really have an accident, or do you think Haynes had him killed to shut him up?”

“Neither one.” Memphis’s voice was no longer softly persuasive but deadly serious. “I killed him.”

Rufus’s eyes widened with surprise.

“I tracked him. I beat his ass, and I pushed his car off an embankment, and he was already dead when it hit the bottom.”

“You killed him?” Rufus seemed unable to digest the possibility that someone he knew as well as Memphis had actually killed somebody. “I remember when you didn’t have that kind of evil in you,” he observed sadly.

“Things change,” Memphis lamented. “Getting five bullets in your ass changes you. Waking up with half of all the blood in your body spreading across the pavement changes you. Having to lay in it for hours watching people pass because you’re too weak to call out changes you. Yeah, I killed his ass, and I’ll kill ten more just like him before I let somebody do that to me again.”

“What you want me to do?” Rufus asked.

“I want you to beg Angus Haynes for a job. I want you to clean his toilet, scrub his floors, wash his cars, even kiss his ass if you have to. Be a good nigger, then tell me everything you see him do.”

“Then what?”

“Then we live happily ever after,” Memphis laughed, “just like the book says.”

The motel room was shadowy but unintentionally so. Subdued lighting from inadequate bulbs hid the woman’s face. Lena stood with her back against the door. It was as if she was frozen in that spot and unable to approach any closer.

Memphis waited on her. He sensed that it wasn’t a moment to be aggressive.

She stared at him then looked away, biting her lower lip in uncharacteristic indecision.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she confessed. “This isn’t like me.” She looked at every spot in the room except at Memphis.

“Why I’m throwing myself at a man who wouldn’t even tell me his name, I don’t know. I’m not ugly. I’m not desperate. What do you think it is?”

“Maybe we both need the same thing,” he answered with an air of soul-searching.

“What?”

“Redemption, peace... revenge.”

Her eyes finally returned to Memphis. It was as if something had finally struck a chord with her.

“Why do you stay here... with him?”

“He’s my father.”

“They say he killed your mother.”

“You’ve been listening to idle gossip. She wasn’t my mother. My mother died when I was a child. That was his second wife. You could say she was my stepmother, I suppose, but I was grown when he married her. She wasn’t anything to me.”

“Did he really kill her?”

She finally stepped away from the door and walked hesitantly across the room and stood close to Memphis. She closed her eyes, leaned against him, and let his arms allay her trembling.

“He killed my mother too,” she sobbed unexpectedly.

Memphis held her, not knowing exactly what to say.

“She... she overdosed with aspirin, but he drove her to it. It was the only way she could get away from him.”

“And that’s why you stay, isn’t it?”

“I stay because I hate him,” she whispered as if she couldn’t bear to hear herself say the words. “I stay because I want to remind him every day how much I despise him.”

Memphis held her tight. She would stay in this hole in the wall until it killed her in order to make her father suffer. Ray Mayweather was probably only one in a line of losers with whom she aligned herself in order to spite him. Nothing hurt a man worse that the thought of his daughter wallowing in a toilet with a maggot like Ray Mayweather. It was a slow death for her as well, and it was inevitable unless he offered her an alternative. He guided her toward the bed, and she didn’t resist. Afterwards, they would talk about alternatives because he had seen a light in her eyes that made him think that they might exist for him again as well.

Memphis settled in at the Fairfax Motel. Having failed at his initial plan to worm his way into Angus Haynes’s world by persuading him to give him a job, he accepted the inevitability of having to be there for the long haul. His venture hadn’t been a waste, however. The brief visit to Haynes’s home had given him insight into how the old man lived, who he trusted, and how he made things work. More importantly, he had eyes and ears now. Rufus could keep him informed of the old man’s activities.

The ensuing weeks had brought complications, however — Lena. Lena was there — in his bed, and more disconcertingly, in his heart. He would have to ask things of her, and he dreaded it. No matter what she said, Angus Haynes was still her father, and there was a price to pay when blood was crossed. That price could mean the end of them.

“Is this what you wanted all along? Is this what brought you here?” she asked repeatedly.

Memphis didn’t want to answer, because any answer he gave would be damning, even if it was a lie.

“Ray, me... you sought us out,” she continued.

“What difference does it make?” he finally countered. “I want what I want, and so do you. If you get what you need, why concern yourself with the process. If I didn’t care about you, I’d be doing this without you.”

Her spirit calmed. It seemed to be the nature of those who are damned by insecurity. They grasp any fiber that will hold their psyches together until the next challenge drags them down again. When her desperation demanded to know what he wanted of her, he told her — bank records, safe deposit key, whatever it took to find the money, he wanted it.

“He don’t do nothin’, Memphis. I think he crazy. This whole thing ain’t nothin’ but a waste of time,” Rufus complained. “He hangs around the house all day. He sends me on little dumb errands. Carl goes to the bank for him once a week. He’s on the phone a lot — sounds like out-of-town business, but I couldn’t hear none of it. You know something else? He goes and prays over his dead wife’s grave every Sunday evening.”

Memphis frowned in disbelief.

“Maybe his conscience is bothering him,” Lena speculated. “I hear people do that when they think they can see the end of their lives. You know he buried her on the property. The grave is just inside the treeline behind the house.”

“What?” Memphis exclaimed.

“This is the country, city boy,” Rufus laughed. “You can do whatever you want to do on your property, including burying your relatives.”

“He’s got fifty thousand dollars in his savings account, and ten thousand in checking. His safe deposit box just has legal papers in it — deeds, insurance,” Lena explained.

“Then it’s in the house,” Memphis said.

It made sense. You couldn’t put a quarter million dollars in cash in the bank without drawing attention. He could have spread it out in a lot of different places, but when a man kills for money, he covets it. He wants to keep it close to him. Angus Haynes was sitting on that money. He was sure of it.

It was Friday, and Carl had gone into town to the bank as he did every Friday morning. Angus Haynes sat on his back porch watching Rufus manicure his lawn and hedges while offering liberal suggestions, as if none of Rufus’s efforts would ever be adequate.

Lena let Memphis into the house, and he went immediately to the old man’s study. Various papers were scattered over the desk as if being victimized by unwelcome eyes had never occurred to Angus Haynes.

Memphis was learning nothing new. He was simply confirming what Lena had already told him. He was about to chalk the little escapade up as a waste when a small silver object on the mantel caught his eye. It was a key and an odd one at that. It was cylindrical with an octagonal hole in the center and large flanges on the proximal end. He had seen one like it a long time ago and found it curious that Angus Haynes would keep this one so handy. Maybe he had a reason, but it damn sure wasn’t love.

Everything he knew about Haynes was paradoxical. He was a racist criminal who had settled into a reclusive small town lifestyle while orchestrating capers hundreds of miles away. He was a respected landowner who had killed his wife in public without a soul willing to acknowledge it. Worst of all, he had lied about her accidental death for so long that he probably believed it himself, and he made a weekly pilgrimage to her grave to give it credence.

Memphis hesitated briefly before taking the key. It was in such a prominent place, it would surely be missed. This was an opportunity, however, that was unlikely to recur. He stuffed the key in his pocket and left before the old man returned.

Memphis waited until dark and entered the Haynes property through the forest at the rear of the home. There was a small clearing separated and hidden from the house by a thin line of trees. A full moon illuminated the area, revealing carefully manicured grass and flower beds. In the center was a long concave slab of gray concrete. If he was right, by the time Angus made his Sunday pilgrimage, he would be long gone and a helluva lot more content than at any other time in his life.

The slab was heavy but movable. His fingers ran across the name engraved on the top. He didn’t bother to read it. It was a name, but it wasn’t important. What was important was what was inside.

He slid the slab to the side, revealing a white metal casket that reflected the moonlight with an eerie glow. Memphis slipped the key out of his pocket. The dead can’t hurt you, he told himself. If they could, Angus Haynes’s wife would have surely found a way out of that casket by now.

The key slid into the opening on the side of the casket perfectly. He turned it slowly with his heart pounding in his throat in anticipation.

Why would a man who hated his wife enough to kill her keep her casket key so close at hand? Why would he visit her grave every Sunday? Nothing in the man’s past indicated that he had the slightest remorse for anything he ever did.

He lifted the casket’s lid and got his answer immediately. He could barely see the desiccated remains of Angus Haynes’s wife. Stuffed throughout the casket were plastic bags filled with money.

Memphis waited with more patience than he was accustomed to having. It was Saturday morning, and Lena should have been there two hours ago. There was a time when he would have simply left. He had a trunk full of money and a fast car. With that kind of leverage, women were generally no problem, but times had changed. He had changed. He seemed to need something to hold on to no matter how tenuous it was.

Lena pulled into the narrow lane behind him. She was driving one of her father’s cars and left it to join him in his. She moved with a nervous, tight-lipped clumsiness as she threw a few sparse possessions into the back seat.

“I’m sorry,” she began to explain. “I had trouble getting away. All hell broke loose. He discovered that the key was missing.”

“Too damned late,” Memphis laughed. “I’ve got to meet Rufus and give him his cut, then we’re out of here.”

“Rufus isn’t coming,” Lena said hesitantly.

Memphis jammed the brakes abruptly.

“Why? What are you talking about?”

“They caught Rufus. They think he stole the key. I was able to sneak away while they were busy with him.”

“Busy! Busy with him? What do you mean?”

“What the hell do you think I mean?” she screamed. “Where... where are you going?”

Memphis had pulled the car out of the lane onto the highway and headed back in the direction of the Haynes home.

“They’ll kill him,” he explained.

“This is our chance,” Lena countered. “He doesn’t know you came back. He has no reason to suspect me. Carl is above reproach. Rufus is the only other person who had free access to the house. Can’t you see, Rufus is buying us time.”

“I don’t need that kind of time,” Memphis retorted.

“What difference does it make? He’s just...”

Memphis cut her words off with a sudden stare.

“...somebody who works there.”

She completed the sentence, but Memphis wasn’t sure she had completed the thought.

“He’s my friend,” he stated simply and kept driving.

The house appeared deserted. Only the presence of Carl’s truck adjacent to it betrayed the possibility that someone might be there. Memphis entered the house behind Lena with his pistol drawn and ready. It appeared empty as Lena led him from room to room.

A barely audible sound found their ears. It sounded like voices, but its direction was unclear. She showed him a doorway near the kitchen that led to the basement below.

“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you,” Angus Haynes asked upon seeing his daughter, who stood at the top of the stairs.

Memphis stood in the shadows behind her. He could see immediately why she had cowered without going farther. Rufus lay on the floor curled in the fetal position. He moaned with each movement, and he could see the bruises where Carl had beaten him. He gave Lena a gentle nudge, and she started reluctantly down the steps.

As Memphis stepped into view, he saw Carl look away and followed his line of vision to a shotgun propped against the wall.

“You won’t make it,” he warned, allowing them to see his gun.

“You!” Angus Haynes exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to get my friend,” Memphis answered. “Rufus didn’t take your money, Mr. Haynes. I did. Morelli followed your orders to the letter, Mr. Haynes. You told him to kill all the colored boys, so you wouldn’t have to pay them. He did just that. At least he tried.”

Haynes’s mouth dropped open with amazement.

“Can you walk, Rufus?” Memphis asked.

Rufus struggled painfully to his feet and staggered toward the stairs.

“You don’t think you’re going to get away with this, do you?” Haynes asked.

Rufus stumbled and Lena draped his arm across her shoulder for support to the astonishment of her father. As they passed in front of Memphis, Carl whirled toward the far wall, grabbed the shotgun, and rolled to one knee. Rufus stumbled forward, falling to his knees as Carl jerked the trigger.

Memphis lunged laterally, firing repeatedly toward the kneeling figure. He saw Carl crumple, but it was too late. He had seen the shotgun blast lift Lena up and fling her toward the stairs. They were all frozen for a moment, in pain and in time. All that Memphis could fathom was the pounding of his heart as he absorbed what had just happened.

Carl was dead. He kicked the shotgun away from him and turned toward Lena. He didn’t bother to approach her. There was too much blood. Nobody could live having lost that much blood.

Angus Haynes was seated on the floor. He was trembling and crying as Memphis stood over him.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “You’ve lost everything, and that’s exactly what you deserve. Besides, I need you alive to keep the cops off my back.” He dropped the empty pistol on the floor in front of Haynes. “You tell the police a story that will explain all of this — why Carl killed Lena and why you killed Carl. I hear you’re good at that sort of thing. Your story had better not include me, or I might have to tell them where all of that money came from. I hear it’s better to grieve in freedom than to grieve in jail. Think about it. Anyway, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking that you’ll eventually catch me, get your money back, and possibly kill me. Hold on to that thought. It could happen, but I promise you, the next time I see you I won’t be so charitable.”

Rufus was halfway up the stairs when Memphis took his arm.

“Who the hell are you?” Haynes cried.

“I’m Travis Redmond from Ahoskie,” Memphis answered. “You know about Ahoskie, don’t you?”

He smiled at the old man as he saw a terrible light of recognition spread across his face. People in that region knew the name Ahoskie — a town with an inordinate share of those with ambiguous racial appearances.

“Those three men you told Morelli to kill were family — my cousins,” Memphis informed him. “Morelli liked to hire men who moved up there from the South. They weren’t as streetwise as those who grew up in New York, but they knew how to play the skin game. Morelli didn’t get the connection because they just didn’t look as white as me. He had to shoot me, because I tried to kill him when I saw what he’d done.”

Memphis led Rufus out into the light. It was a beautiful June morning as they drove toward the state’s northern border.

“Is this Never-Never Land?” Rufus asked.

“Not yet,” Memphis replied.

“I’m sorry about your girl. I might have been wrong about her.”

Memphis nodded without speaking.

“I might have been wrong about something else, too,” Rufus sighed.

Memphis’s eyes left the highway momentarily. Rufus was not a man who often admitted to being mistaken.

“I guess I got at least one white friend,” he said, and they both laughed for a long time.