The Empress File

CHAPTER 17

John walked down to the boat the next morning, just as we were getting up.

LuEllen had gone out to the main cabin, wearing only a pair of underpants and a T-shirt. I was sitting on the bed with my feet flat on the floor, suddenly bone-tired, when she called, apprehensively, "John's coming."

"What?" I stood up, pulled on my artist's shorts and a T-shirt, and padded barefoot into the cabin. John was at the bottom of the levee wall, just stepping out on the pier. I went out to meet him, shading my eyes in the bright morning sunlight. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with Beethoven's face on the front. He waved cheerily to the marina manager, then came right up to the boat.

"Hey, Kidd, how's the work going?" he called in a voice loud enough for the manager to hear. He scrambled aboard, and we shook hands.

"I'm John Smith, Memphis artist," he said quietly. He was sweating harder than seemed necessary, even with the heat. "We need to talk. I didn't think you could risk coming to Marvel's, and we don't have time to go out in the country."

"Come on inside," I said.

"Bizarre shit," John said as soon as the door was shut. "Did you hear about Dessusdelit?"

"What about her?"

"She's dead. The cops think it was suicide. Last night."

LuEllen stared at me, deadpan.

"Jesus Christ," I said. "Do you know anything else?"

"They found her in bed, wearing a pink nightgown. She took a bunch of pills and whiskey, I guess. There was a note, but I don't know what it said. The cops are talking to Ballem, I know that."

"What about the meeting tonight?"

"That's still on, as far as I know, but I thought you needed to hear about Dessusdelit, and I was afraid to call on the phone. Quite a few people know she was seeing you, getting her cards read."

"You think the cops are coming here?"

"I don't know. I don't know what the note said."

"Jesus."

"Time to go," LuEllen said when John left.

"We can't now," I said. "If the cops want to talk to us, we've got to be here. If we take off and they come looking for us."

"What a fuckin' mess. We did another one," LuEllen said.

"How're you gonna know?" I said. "Assholes aren't supposed to kill themselves."

"We've got to clean the boat out," she said. "If they go through it, they'll find my tools."

We decided to go out on the river.

"That was an artist guy from Memphis, haven't seen him in years," I told the manager as we cast off. "He's always going up and down the river collecting stuff for his sculpture."

"Oh, yeah? He does river stuff?"

"Yeah, out of water-worn glass and old bottles and driftwood and shit," I said.

"I'd like to see some of that," he said, and he sounded as if he did. When we were out of the marina, I turned upstream. LuEllen wanted to keep on going to St. Paul.

"Hill's fucked," she argued. "We send some pictures to the cops and forget it. Toss the gun overboard."

"The photos might not be enough if the cops don't know where they come from. A good defense attorney might be able to keep them out of evidence. And we can't tell them where we got them, unless we want people looking at our backgrounds. But if they find the gun out at animal control. that'd seal it up tight."

"I'm getting scared, Kidd. We're walking the edge, with Hill and the cops and everybody."

"I know. One more night, and we're out of here."

A mile or so above town we cut through a side channel behind a sandbar. The channel was too clogged to go all the way through, but it got us out of sight of the main river. LuEllen tossed her burglary tools over the side, one by one, along with the case. All could be replaced, and she had not an ounce of sentimentalism for them. She held the lockpicks out; we'd need them at animal control.

Her camera equipment I could claim as my own, if the cops searched us and asked about it. I'd say I used it to shoot landscapes. We still had the extra prints of the murder photos, the gun, and the jewels. LuEllen hid the jewels by cutting tiny holes halfway through the carpet in the corner of the bedroom. She pressed the stones into the holes until they were out of sight, but before they came through the underside of the carpet. Even if somebody lifted the carpet, the jewels would be invisible and secure.

That left two sets of photos and the negatives. Working with gloves, LuEllen packaged the prints and wrote short notes, in block letters, to the county sheriff and to the commander of the state police district headquarters. The negatives she put in another envelope. We'd mail that to a reliable friend in St. Paul, an old lady who lived in the apartment below mine and who took care of my cat while I was gone.

Finally, the gun.

"There's nothing we can do with the gun except keep it hidden," I said. "We need to hide it only until tonight."

"What if there's a reception committee waiting back at the dock?"

"Then we're fucked anyway, because we've still got the photos. Look, the main problems are the jewels and the lockpicks. The jewels they won't find, and we can throw the picks overboard if we see somebody waiting. We can't dump the gun or the photos, but we can explain them if we have to. We say we were taking landscape shots from the top of that hill, saw the killings, and were afraid to do anything because we believed Hill was psychotic. Because we didn't know the town, and we were scared, and because Hill was friends with all the cops-"

"Sounds like bullshit," she said.

"It's all I got," I said.

There was nobody waiting for us. Even the marina manager had gone off somewhere. We stuck plenty of stamps on our packages and put them in separate mailboxes.

As we were walking back to the Fanny, LuEllen asked, "Is there anybody in this whole thing that we haven't lied to at one time or another?"

I had to think about it for a minute. "Bobby," I said finally. "I don't believe we've lied to Bobby."

After some argument we decided I should go to the city council meeting that night, while LuEllen went to the animal control complex with the gun.

"What if somebody wonders what you're doing there?" LuEllen asked.

"I just tell them I'm hanging out, that Dessusdelit was a friend. Shit, at this point I don't care. Hill and Ballem will be there, if only to quit. But I've got to see them. If something went wrong."

"OK."

"I'll call you from City Hall. If Hill and Ballem are there, you can drift the boat down, tie off on that wall. If it's clear, you go in, dump the gun – put it up in the ceiling maybe – and get out. Coming in from the river, at night, you should be OK, if you're careful about scouting it out."

"I'd rather go without you anyway," she said. "Safer that way."

"Yeah. And as soon as I see what's going on at City Hall, I'll cruise animal control, just in case. If there's a problem, turn on a light. If everything's OK, get out. I'll see you back here."

"And we leave tomorrow morning."

"As soon as I get the car back."

The meeting was scheduled for seven-thirty. I left the boat fifteen minutes early, expecting a mob at the City Hall. When I pulled into the lot across the street, there was already a crowd on the sidewalk. Neither Hill nor Ballem seemed to be around, but I waited, watching, until people began drifting inside.

The city council chamber was a small semicircular auditorium with seats for perhaps fifty people. Folding chairs had been brought in, and thirty lucky spectators were occupying them. Another dozen people were standing against the wall. The air-conditioning couldn't keep up. The temperature inside must have been in the nineties, and the sweating townspeople used stacks of agendas from the last meeting to fan themselves. Nobody was giving up a seat.

Marvel and Matron Carter, the basketball coach who'd be the fifth council member, were sitting together near the front. John was absent; still a little nervous about showing his face, he was waiting at Marvel's.

The word about Dessusdelit had gotten around, and it was the major topic of conversation as we waited for the council to show. The wait went on for ten minutes, fifteen. Then Bell came in through a side door, looking harassed, and said to a long groan that the meeting would be delayed until eight o'clock.

I stepped outside, relieved to be in the relatively cool hallway, and walked down to a pay phone and called LuEllen.

"Wait," I said. "I haven't seen either Ballem or Hill, and they've delayed the meeting. I don't know what's going on."

"I'll wait," she said.

At ten after eight Bell reappeared, apologized again, said the meeting had been delayed another twenty minutes, and suggested that the townspeople adjourn to the sidewalk.

"You all are starting to parboil," he said. Then he looked out into the crowd, searching the faces, and stopped when he got to mine.

"The artist fellow back there? Mr. Kidd? Could you come down here and talk to me for a minute? And Miz Atkins? Could you come down here, too?"

A buzz went through the crowd, and I thought about walking out the back, down to the boat, and leaving for St. Paul. I could dump the car in the used-car lot where I'd rented it, with a couple of hundred bucks under the seat. But there was no way out, with everybody watching. Marvel had walked down as soon as Bell called her name, and I picked my way down the center aisle, trying to look puzzled.

"Come down this way," Bell said to me. He let Marvel go first, and I tagged along behind, until we were in the hall, and then he led the way to the council offices. Ballem was there, looking frightened. Hill was with him, wild with rage but holding it in. St. Thomas was standing down the hall with Rebeck. The chief of police was there, with four or five men I didn't recognize.

"Motherfucker," Hill said, standing up when Marvel and I came in. "What're you and this bitch up to?"

"You watch your mouth, Duane," Bell said. His voice was like a knife, and I suddenly understood why Bell had done so well in the big-time farming business. He was not a man to fool with.

"I don't know what's happening," I said to everybody in general. "What in the hell am I doing here?"

We were in the narrow hallway outside the tiny council offices, the only place there was enough space for us all.

"Duane, here, says you and Miz Atkins are involved in some kind of conspiracy to drag the city down," Bell said. "He said all the weird happenings here the last few days are because of you."

"Duane's a fruitcake," I said. Hill started up, and I braced my feet, but Bell put his hand on Hill's shoulder and shoved him back down. "The first time I ever saw him was on the day I came to town. He came up and hassled me on old Mrs. Trent's yard, where I was painting. Mrs. Trent came out and ran him off – says she knew him from the days he used to shoplift out of her stores-"

"I never," Hill said.

"There's a police record in juvenile court," I said. "That's what Miz Trent says anyway. Then the next time I saw him, I was down at the Holiday Inn, and he came after my ass; I still don't know why. You were there, Mr. Bell. He called my woman friend a. four-letter word you don't normally use on respectable women, or any kind of woman, for that matter, if you got even an ounce of breeding-"

"This is bullshit," Hill said, twisting up to look at Bell. "Ask him about Atkins!"

Marvel looked at me and shook her head. "I saw the man only one other time, when Miz Dessusdelit and the others quit. I thought he was a friend – I only saw him from behind. I thought he was Lou Shaffer from the school – and I squeezed his arm, but when he turned around. I was embarrassed."

Bell looked from one of us to the other, not quite believing.

Then I said, "Fuck it – excuse me, ma'am. But I'm getting out of here. You're all crazy people. I'm taking the car back to Miz Wells's brother, and I'm getting in my boat, and I'm getting out of here."

Bell sighed. "I don't know," he said. He looked at Ballem and Hill. "Come on, you two. If you're going to do it, let's do it."

Marvel and I left first, not looking at each other, and turned in opposite directions once we were in the hall. I walked straight down to the phone and said, "They're all here: Ballem, Hill, St. Thomas, and Rebeck."

"Go?"

"Go."

I understood from Bell's comment as Marvel and I left the council offices that Hill and Ballem were ready to quit. I almost left after talking to LuEllen but decided at the last minute to stick around for the finale. When I went back to the city council room, people were packed in the hallway.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I don't know. Duane's saying something about his quitting," said a yellow-toothed courthouse regular standing in the doorway. Hill stopped talking, and Bell said something I couldn't understand, and Ballem started talking. Two minutes later it was done, and the two men walked out through the side door, leaving Bell at the council table, along with Brooking Davis and Reverend Dodge.

Davis was talking to Bell, and the yellow-toothed man turned and said in a panicky voice, "That Davis is asking about electing new members. Son of a bitch, there's two coloreds against Lucius."

There was some further exchange at the council table, and the gavel rapped, and Bell, Davis, and Dodge got up and walked out. "Lucius called a recess," Yellow-tooth said. "By golly, this could be bad."

Whatever was happening, I couldn't change it. Time to go. I was out the door, crossing the street to the parking lot, when I heard somebody coming after me. Hill, I thought, and I pivoted. It was Marvel.

"Gotta talk," she said in a harsh whisper.

"Jesus Christ, Marvel, if anybody sees us, the whole thing comes unglued."

"I can't help it," she whispered. I pointed to the other side of the car as I unlocked the door and said, "Lay down on the backseat."

When she was in, I started the car and rolled out of the lot, turned away from the courthouse, and started around the block.

"What?" I asked.

"A problem we didn't see." Her voice was disembodied, floating over the backseat. "Bell caught on, of course, as soon as Davis suggested nominations for new members."

"What can he do about it? He's outvoted, two to one."

"He can do two things that we didn't think of. He can refuse to go back to the meeting. Without a quorum there's no vote," she said.

"Shit." I gnawed at a thumbnail. "He can't stay out forever, though."

"And he can quit. That would do it. The governor would have to appoint replacements again, and there'd be three more white boys. And Bell's talking about doing just that."

"Goddamn it. Who's he talking to? Everybody? Or just Davis."

"Just me and Davis. I think he's still trying to figure out what we're doing. And he really doesn't want to quit; that'd be the end for his precious bridge."

I took a couple of more blocks, worrying it. There was only one out. "You gotta deal with him," I said. "You. Or Davis. Somebody. You've gotta find a way to cut a deal with Bell."

"How?" she asked. "He doesn't even want to live here. He wants to live across the river, in a whole 'nother state. He's here only because he thinks it'll help him get that fuckin' bridge."

"Then get the bridge for him," I said.

"I can't. Everybody's tried. And they've tried about everything they could think of."

"Well, I'll tell you what, Marvel," I said. "If he walks out of that City Hall without going back to the meeting, the white pressure'll get heavier and heavier, and he won't be able to move. If he goes back tonight and you get elected to the council, he can always claim that it didn't occur to him to boycott the meeting. If the meeting gets put off until tomorrow, there's no way that'd work. By tomorrow everybody will have thought of it."

"You got nothing for me?" she asked. "Nothing?"

"Man, I'm a technician. I can get you to a point, but after that. you're the politician. What you need is a deal, to cut a deal." I looked at my watch. "And I've got to take you back now. You've got about two minutes to get to Bell. Two minutes to figure out how you're gonna get a bridge for him."

"Ah, Jesus," she groaned. "We're so close. So close. What am I going to do?"