Blood Memory

Chapter 60

My last ride to the island is both dream and nightmare.

Highway 61.

A narrow, winding strip of asphalt following the Mississippi River.

Mythical American highway.

Escape route for northbound refugees, most of them black, fleeing a place that held no hope but where their hearts remained nonetheless, yearning for the body’s return. I tried to use this highway as an escape route, too, only I never got away. For thirty-one years I’ve driven up and down this road between two lovely, sleepy cities, but always the island lay between them, a dreamworld shrouded in fog and memory, waiting like an empty stage for my life’s final act.

Today it will be played out.

The messenger of my fate is Billy Neal.

It seems wrong, somehow. I never really knew this man. This black-haired, pale-skinned, dime-store-handsome Vegas punk with snakeskin boots and a night-school law degree. What the hell is he doing in my life? Obligingly, he answers me without being asked.

“You still don’t know who I am, do you?”

I grip the wheel harder and keep my eyes on the road.

“ Man, I’ve been waiting for this,” he says, his gaze moving over me like a wet tongue. “You’ve had this coming a long time. The nigger, too.”

If Pearlie weren’t tied in the trunk, I’d take my chances and ram the Cadillac into a tree, just to kill this bastard. That’s probably why he put her in there.

“You don’t know shit, do you?” he says.

“Guess not.”

“Look at me.”

“I’m driving.”

He reaches out with his gun and pulls my face around. He looks as angry as he does triumphant. Why? I wonder, my eyes lingering on his pistol. It’s an automatic, ugly and clean as a fresh scalpel. It’ll do its job.

“Did my grandfather send you to do this?”

Billy smiles strangely. “A smart officer doesn’t give orders like this. But a good soldier knows what to do when trouble comes. A good soldier doesn’t have to be told.”

“Soldier? I know what kind of soldier you are. The kind my father got stuck with in Cambodia.”

His eyes narrow. “What?”

“Nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Billy kicks a snakeskin boot up onto the dash of the Cadillac. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

I don’t answer.

“You smart enough to know what’s about to happen to you?”

“You’re going to kill us.”

He laughs. “You get the prize, sweet thing. But that was the easy part. The question is, why?”

I know better than to take this bait. The more interest I express, the less he’ll tell me. That’s his nature. He’s never had much power, so he takes it however he can get it.

“Well?” he presses. “Do you?”

Pearlie bangs twice on the trunk lid. It makes my heart hurt, but at least she’s still alive.

“Because you’re in my way,” Billy says in a reflective voice. “That’s why.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you stay alive, you’ll inherit my money.”

This wasn’t the answer I expected. “Your money? What are you talking about?”

He laughs again, this time almost a cackle. “Kirkland’s my father, you dumb cunt. You haven’t figured that out yet?”

After all I’ve heard today, this revelation doesn’t have much effect.

“My mother worked for one of those DeSalle companies. Bookkeeping. She did a lot of work at home. Dr. Kirkland would go by her house to check up on the figures. I guess the main figure he was interested in was hers. Anyway, he nailed her. And I was the result.”

“You sound proud of it.”

Billy shrugs. “Nothing to be ashamed of. He paid her hush money nice and regular. Sent me to school, got me out of a couple of scrapes. That’s how I wound up in the army.”

“The army or jail, was it?”

“Something like that. He paid for law school, too, when I got out. Anyway, that makes me your uncle-or that’s what I thought until today. After hearing what he told you in the study, it sounds like I may be your half brother, too.” Billy laughs again.

“That’s bullshit.”

“You wish it was.” He checks the safety on his pistol, then flicks it on and off a couple of times. “The thing is, I already got a piece of the gross of the Indian casino. I did a lot of work prepping that deal for him. Wet work, you know what I’m saying? But the thing is, there’s more money to be had. A lot more. My mama’s got records of it. There’s money you probably don’t even know about. Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, all over. And now that your pretty little aunt offed herself, you and your mother are the only living heirs in the will. You believe that?”

I believe it. Grandpapa may have wanted sons, but nothing would cause him to bequeath one dollar outside the legitimate family, not even to charity. Not unless he got something in return.

“He’s been relying on me more and more lately,” Billy says. “He’s seen what I can do. While you’ve been doing nothing but fucking up. You’re a pure liability to him now, that’s a fact. When you disappear, he’ll breathe a sigh of relief.”

“You’re probably right.”

Billy looks at me in surprise, but then he nods with satisfaction, glad to have his intuition confirmed.

Highway 61 unrolls steadily ahead of us, curving through the hardwood forest, leading us ever southward. A gray mass of clouds is gathering to the southeast. If we went on toward Baton Rouge, we’d probably miss it, but the bulk of the storm seems to be piling up over the river, right about where the island faces Angola Prison.

Only fitting, I suppose, that my last bit of thread should play out in the rain.

We’re ten miles down the Angola road when the rain sweeps over us. The sound of drops hitting the roof sends me halfway into the trance I learned to enter before I could even think for myself. Billy Neal seems to think the rain a good omen. Smiling with contentment, he tunes the radio to a country station.

“You like the rain?” I ask.

“Today I do.”

“Why today?”

He turns to me and purses his lips, as though debating whether to confide something. “Because you’re going to drown today, Sis.”

This strikes me as so absurd that I almost laugh out loud. “How’s that?”

“You’re gonna drive off the bridge to DeSalle Island.”

I say nothing, but in my mind I see Brer Rabbit crying, Please don’t throw me in that briar patch! Is this the best that Billy can come up with? If he drives me into the old river channel in this car, I can get myself and Pearlie to shore without even breaking a sweat.

“I see you thinking,” he says. “Don’t worry, I know all about your free diving. You’re gonna be down at the bottom way too long to save yourself.”

“If you tie me up, it won’t look like an accident.”

He smiles his secret smile again. “You’re not the only one who can swim. After you’ve been down there twenty minutes or so, I’m going to go down and take the ropes off. No muss, no fuss. A drunk manic-depressive runs herself and her nigger maid into the river in a storm. Open-and-shut case.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“You will be.” He opens the glove compartment and takes out a pint of Taaka vodka. “Found this in the slave quarters. Guess your mama likes vodka, too.” He uncaps the bottle and shoves it at me. “Drink.”

“No, thanks.”

“Not up to your standard?” He presses the barrel of his gun against my temple. “Drink.”

“I can’t. I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant!” He laughs from deep in his belly. “Shit, you’re going to be dead in an hour!”

“So you say.”

The blow from the gun is so sudden and sharp that everything goes black for a moment. I feel the car swerve, but I manage to right it.

“You fucking drink this,” he commands.

“No.”

He’s tensing to hit me again when I see the turn for the island. “Look!”

“Go on,” he says. “Take it.”

Just ahead, a narrow dirt track leaves the road and heads into the deep woods. How many times did I take this turn as a little girl, terrified it would rain when I reached the island, yet powerless to stop the journey? Thirty years later, I’ve come full circle.

Billy Neal takes a swig from the vodka bottle, then screws the cap back on and throws the bottle into the seat behind us.

“You’ll drink it,” he says. “Or I’ll beat that nigger to death right in front of you.”