The Heavenly Table

65

WHEN LESTER WALLINGFORD explained to his father why they had Sugar locked up, the police chief made a sour face and said, “How much shit we talkin’ about?” His nervous system was giving him fits, as it always was immediately after returning from a trip to see his mistress in Washington Court House, a former queen of the Highland County Bell Festival who seemed determined to suck the very lifeblood out of him with her demands. Neither of his sons nor his wife knew about the affair, but he was finding it harder and harder to keep it that way.

Lester held his hand in the air. “Maybe yay high, that much around.”

“He from around here?”

“No, he claims he’s from Detroit, but I’d say he’s just a tramp from the looks of him.”

“No money then?”

“Only thing he had in his pockets was a razor and a couple of walnuts.”

“Mrs. Grady’s, huh?”

The son nodded. “She’s already called three times this morning. Wants him and Pollard both put in prison. She’s recommending five-year sentences, says she’ll get her brother-in-law to fix it up.” Mrs. Grady’s niece was married to a judge in Pickaway County, and she had used his influence several times to get her way when the law in Ross County seemed a bit reluctant to grant her wishes. Egbert Sterling, an amateur horticulturist who had beaten her out of first place for two consecutive years in the local flower show, was the latest victim of her wrath, and was now serving a six-month sentence for assault on a Pickaway County law clerk, even though the man had several witnesses testify at the trial that he was spreading lime in his garden at the time of the alleged attack. “She also told me to let you know that, from what she hears, Washington Court House is a regular Sodom and Gomorrah these days,” he said. “I think maybe she’s gone a little simple.”

“She said that?”

“Her exact words.”

Chief Wallingford sat down at his desk and swallowed a handful of aspirins, then poured a good inch of Sir Alistair’s Stomach Soother into a cup of coffee. He thought for a minute, not so much about Mrs. Grady, but about something his mistress had said that morning, about how if he didn’t leave his wife, she was going to make things rough on him. After he had moved heaven and earth to cover her worthless baby brother’s gambling debts! His only option was to go out to the Whore Barn tomorrow, see if he could squeeze a little bit more out of the pimp. A piece of jewelry would keep her happy for a couple more weeks anyway, maybe even longer if it was gaudy enough. Why had he ever gotten involved with the highfalutin bitch in the first place? He’d known as soon as he slipped his cock into her that he was doomed. It had always been his nature to feel a bit depressed after he got his gun off, but with Marjorie Flagstaff, he’d actually heard a death knell ring in his head the moment he’d rolled off of her. And now the old bitch Grady had found out. Goddamn it to hell. He’d be at her beck and call every minute of every day for who knew how long.

“Dad?” Lester said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Wallingford said. “Take a wheelbarrow and a shovel down there and have him clean her yard up, then turn him loose.”

“What about Mrs. Grady? She’s gonna—”

“Jesus, Lester, I can’t keep a man in jail just because she’s got a bug up her ass.”

“Well, where do you want me to have him put it?”

“Goddamn it, boy, I don’t know. Have him dump it in the creek.”

“The creek? Hell, I eat fish out of there.”

“So? Won’t be no worse than what the paper mill puts in it. And you keep an eye on him until he’s finished, too, unless you want to do it.”

“What about Pollard?”

“It’s too early in the mornin’ to be thinking about that lowlife.”

“But it’s almost three o’clock,” Lester said.

“Son, just let me drink my coffee, will ye?”

Lester found a cart with wobbly wheels and a shovel buried under a pile of unclaimed stolen property in the shed behind the jail, then went in and took Sugar out of his cell. He had the prisoner push the cart back to the scene of the crime while he followed behind in the police car. “You get that yard cleaned up, and you’re a free man.”

“I don’t see why—” Sugar started to say, but the look on the cop’s blank face told him he’d be wasting his breath arguing. “Where you want me to put it?”

The policeman pointed down the alley to the creek bank. “You’ll have to take it down there, dump it in the water.” Then he took out his pocket watch and checked the time. “Now look, I got things to do tonight, so let’s get moving. I don’t want to see nothin’ but elbows and assholes, understand?” Then he leaned back in the front seat of the car and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

At four o’clock, Sugar upended the last load of waste into Paint Creek. He’d kept waiting for Pollard to come around, so he could sling a shovelful in his face, but he never showed up. After waking Lester, he took the cart and the shovel back to the jail and hosed them off before he was officially released. Sugar stuck his razor in his pocket and tossed the nuts away, then headed for the colored section of town where he’d bought his bowler, thinking he might run into the whore with the wart on her lip again. If possible, he wanted to find someone to shack up with for a couple of days, so he could rebuild his strength before he proceeded on to Detroit. Walking down an alley, he happened to see the old man who had given him the drink of water just a few days ago. He was sitting on the ground at the edge of his garden with a sad look on his wizened, charcoal gray face. Of course, Sugar didn’t know, and if he had, he wouldn’t have given a damn, but the old man had just dug up the last of his turnips, a yearly event that always brought him much pain. It meant that cold weather was right around the corner; and within a few more weeks, he’d be shut up tight in two cramped rooms with his old woman until the spring thaw. Imagine, he’d told his daughter the last time she came down from Lima for a visit, being trapped in a coffin with your worst enemy. That’s what the winters were like for them now. By the middle of February, they’d both have murder on their minds. Sugar kept on walking; and the old man got up and went around the yard looking for a rat to beat on, but he couldn’t find one.