Gideon (44 page)

“We’re looking for someone,” Carl said. It was his entry into the conversation, and he sounded just a little too eager. Amanda warned him off with her eyes.

The man tensed as soon as Carl spoke. Amanda could see his eyes narrow and the skin on his face tighten.

“Who might you be looking for?”

“Someone who lived here a long time ago. In the fifties. A woman.”

“A black woman.” It wasn’t a question.

“That’s right.” Carl nodded.

“What’s her name?”

“We don’t know. All we have is a description.”

“Lot of black women live here over the years.”

“Not too many like this one, I think. She had a very distinctive birthmark. It covered one whole eye, like a ring around half of her face. She was a midwife.”

“Is this for your book on southern economics?”

Amanda blushed. “Word travels pretty fast around here.”

“Even faster than it used to.”

“I’m not writing a book.”

“No,” the black man said. “And you’re not from the
Times-Picayune
, either.” Amanda started to protest, but he cut her off. “I’m the alderman here. Name’s Luther Heller. That mean something to you?”

Amanda shook her head.

“You don’t know who I am?”

“No.”

“I read the papers,” Luther Heller said. “I watch television. And I pay attention. So I know who you are. You mean something to me.”

“You must have us confused with—”

“I don’t have you confused with anyone. I know who you are, and I know why you’re here. And I know that the police would be mighty surprised and mighty happy to find out that you’re not in Portland, Oregon.”

“Portland?” Carl asked. He looked at Amanda, confused and almost amused. He’d thought this man had recognized them. But Portland?

The alderman saw the look on Carl’s face. He reached down, picked up a copy of that morning’s newspaper off a nearby desk, and held it out for them to see.

“Might as well read it. I’m not about to call the police.”

Amanda took the paper and buried her nose in the story. Moments later a harsh laugh burst out of her. She hesitated and glanced at the tall black man. He had them cold. There was no point in pretending any further.

“They think we’re in Portland, Carl. They don’t just think it, they know it. They have a positive ID. It’s been confirmed.”

“No way.”

“We were sighted there, together, at a Gap,” she affirmed. “You brought two pairs of khaki pants and a T-shirt. I bought a denim shirt and a pair of shorts. Our purchase totaled two hundred eleven dollars and eighteen cents. The clerk who waited on us recognized us.”

“How?” he asked Amanda. “How could they—”

“Shaneesa! She hacked into their computer—right down to which cash register it was and what time the purchase took place. That’s why she wanted my credit card numbers. God, she’s scary.”

“But how could somebody have
recognized
us? We were never there.”

“Only you and I—and Mr. Heller—know that,” Amanda countered. “Credit card records don’t lie. The credit card company says it happened, so it happened. The Clerk
had
to say she waited on us. On
both
of us. The only other way it could have played out is if she’d accepted a stolen credit card, which would not only make her seem stupid and incompetent, it could have gotten her fired. Especially if she accepted it from
you
, someone on the Ten Most Wanted list. Instead she covered her butt and got her face on TV and her name in the papers.” Amanda puffed out her cheeks with relief. “Shaneesa has bought us some serious breathing room.”

They both turned toward Alderman Heller. He could choke off their breathing room with one phone call. But why hadn’t he done that already? What was he waiting for?

The black man gave no indication of his motives. He merely nodded, a very quiet nod, as if he’d made up his mind about something. His hand slipped unobtrusively into his right pants pocket.

“Why are you looking for her? For Momma One-Eye?” he asked.

“That’s her name?” Carl asked. It thrilled him to hear it. The woman he had read about, had half invented on the written page, was now real.

“It’s what folks call her. It’s what folks have called her for a long time.”

Amanda and Carl exchanged a quick glance. Carl nodded, and Amanda went on. “We believe that she is privy to some very important information.”

The man’s voice deepened. To Carl it sounded like a clap of thunder. “Important to who?”

“To a lot of people,” Amanda said.

“White people.”

“All people.”

He shook his head at her answer, not believing it. “How badly do you want this information?”

“Very badly.”

“Enough to kill for it?” And before they could answer, “Enough to slit a little black girl’s throat? Enough to burn down an old lady’s house? Enough to take away any reason this old man you’re looking at has to keep living?”

Carl stepped forward. He answered the black man’s questions. “No, sir,” he said quietly. “Not enough to do any of that.”

“Mr. Heller,” Amanda said, “you told us you weren’t going to call the police.”

“That’s right.”

“What
are
you going to do?”

The alderman’s hand emerged now from his pocket, and with it came a pistol. The calm manner in which he waved it at them, the easy way it sat in his large, callused palm, made Carl and Amanda realize that he was a man who knew how to use the gun he was holding.

“Please,” Carl said to the black man, “whatever you think you know, you don’t.”

“Don’t you ever tell me what I know, young man. I know that too many people are dead for no reason. I know that whatever it is you think is so important, it got my baby girl killed. And
her
baby girl.”

“We’re sorry,” Amanda said. “We’re so sorry. But we had no idea.”

“I’ve been waiting, knowing someone else had to come. Knowing it wasn’t over yet.”

“It’s not over,” Carl said. “But we’re here to try to end it.”

“Mr. Heller … Luther …” Amanda spoke softly, gently. “We don’t know what happened here. But other people besides your daughter have gotten killed. If you don’t help us find Momma One-Eye, there’s a chance a lot more people will die, too.” She waved her hand toward Carl. “Whatever you’ve read in the paper about him, or us, it’s a lie. Somebody is setting us up. It sounds like the same person who killed your daughter. If you ever want to find out what happened, if you ever want some kind of justice, then you don’t want to turn us over to the police. What you want to do is help us.”

“I don’t want justice,” Alderman Heller said. “Black people don’t get justice when things like this happen.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I want revenge.”

“Well,” Amanda breathed, “then I don’t know if we can help you. All we want to do is find the truth. And try to stay alive while we’re doing that.”

“I want the man who murdered my babies.” Luther Heller held his stomach, as if the mere act of speaking those words were ripping up his insides.

“Did you see him?” Carl asked slowly.

The alderman closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and nodded. “He came into town, asking for Momma One-Eye, just like you.”

“What did he look like?” Carl spoke gently. “Can you tell us what he looked like?”

Luther opened his eyes. “Can you give me one reason why I should trust you?”

Amanda took a long time before answering. “No,” she said. “I can’t think of a reason in the world.”

Luther nodded again. He bit down on his lip until the blood drained from it. Then he stepped sideways and used the gun to motion them forward into the back room. Amanda went first. As she stepped through the door, Carl heard her gasp. He followed close behind her. As soon as he was in the alderman’s office, he saw what had taken Amanda’s breath away.

The walls of Luther Heller’s office were covered with pencil and charcoal sketches. There must have been seventy-five of them. Every sketch was of a man’s face. The
same
man’s face. Some were profiles, some face-on views. Some were extraordinarily detailed, others focused only on certain features: hair, eyes, nose. Alderman Heller was a talented artist—and clearly obsessed with his subject. His portraits perfectly captured the man portrayed. The arrogance. The savagery. The thick muscular good looks and the confident demeanor.

“Do you know him?” Alderman Heller asked.

“Yes,” Carl said.

“Tell me.”

“His name is Harry Wagner.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Carl nodded. “He’s dead.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“How did he die?”

“Very painfully,” Carl said.

For the very first time Luther Heller’s face relaxed. A small fraction of the grief faded. “Good,” he said. Then he slowly placed the gun back in his pocket, sat down in his desk chair, and folded his hands in front of him. “Now,” he said, “tell me more about this important information you say Momma One-Eye has.”

* * *

Payton belched, and for a moment he was overwhelmed by the aftertaste of greasy fried chicken, jalapeño corn bread, and sweet, syrupy Coca-Cola that he’d gobbled down almost an hour earlier.

He couldn’t risk being seen, not by the kid and the girl, so he’d eaten at some fried-food joint. A sign said it was a church. Yeah, right. What kind of fucking church sold fried chicken? A church way the hell down here, that’s what kind. And the jigs who served there were so damn stupid that when he’d asked for a sandwich, they just gave him two pieces of white bread and a chicken leg. Like he was supposed to pick the thing apart himself. Or eat the goddamn bones! For a moment his rage had almost gotten the better of him. He flashed back to the night at the precinct: his choke hold on Yussef Gilliam, the savage beating, the fury. And the aftermath: his firing, his humiliation, the end of his dream. The end of his
life
. He almost grabbed the poor sap who’d handed him his bread and his chicken leg. He could have killed him, he realized. Would have
liked
to have killed him. And then he shook his head. Cleared his brains. What the hell was he doing? It was just a sandwich. So they were even stupider down South than they were in the New York projects. Big deal. Amazing, he thought. Hard actually to get your brain around. But not really that important in the scheme of things. You couldn’t kill someone because he didn’t even know how to make a chicken sandwich.

But it would be nice if he could.

They were still in there, the kid and the girl, still inside the town hall. What the hell were they talking about? Maybe he should just go in and find out. Barge in and shock the shit out of them. End it all now. Wouldn’t be that hard …

No. No, better to wait. What was he thinking? Payton realized he was getting impatient. The last thing he needed was to cause a scene, have someone see him. He had to do this quietly, make sure no one knew a thing. He couldn’t afford to screw up this time. This was a good gig. And if he did things right, it would lead to a helluva lot more.

He’d been out of New York too long, that was the problem. The pavement, the anger, the junkies, the pimps, the
action
—that’s what relaxed him. That’s what he needed. It’s why he’d been a great cop. Put him in a subway station with some PR trying to stick a Jew for a pair of sneakers, that’s where Payton belonged. It’s where he was at his best. Not down here, where everything was so goddamn clean and green and slow and polite. He didn’t like it here. He didn’t like polite. He wanted out. Soon. But he couldn’t let that affect the job.

Say what you want about him, Payton thought to himself, but he never left a job unfinished. You may not like the way he got results, but he always got them. Always got the job done.

Always.

So he knew he’d wait. Wait until he could follow them someplace nice and quiet. Wait until he could do what he came here to do, and do it right.

They were coming out now. All three of them. Looking real friendly.

Payton turned the key in his ignition. His car started right up, another advantage of working for the Man. Everything always started right up.

They were pulling out of the parking lot now. Where were they going? And then Payton realized: What the hell difference did it make? He was going to get them in the end. Eventually.

Still, he hoped he could kill them all soon, go get a decent white man’s meal, and get the hell home.

* * *

“Momma?”

The house was dark, and for a few moments Carl thought it was without electricity. But then Luther Heller reached to his right and flicked a switch, and a bare bulb hanging from a ceiling fixture in the corner of the room, unprotected by any shade, came on. The room was illuminated was shabby but spotlessly clean. It shone. As if the person who lived there had nothing to do except keep it polished. There was one couch, which had seen better days, and two straight-backed chairs. The floor was linoleum and the walls were covered in blue flowered wallpaper that, in spots, was water-stained and peeling. A small television sat on a metal cart right in the middle of the room.

“Momma?” Alderman Heller called out again. “Clarissa May? It’s Luther.” There was only silence as an answer. “I’ve brought two friends.
Real
friends. They think they can help end all this madness.”

Still nothing but silence. Then Carl cocked his head. He thought he heard … no, it couldn’t be … yes. He looked at Amanda, and he could tell she heard it, too. So did Heller.

Singing.

Low, gravelly. Almost tuneless, somehow delicate. Impossible to tell if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s. But definitely singing:

“I am poured out like water
All my bones are out of joint
My heart is become like wax
Melted in my inmost parts”

“Psalms,” Luther Heller said, and smiled. “She loves to sing those psalms.” Then he called out, “Momma?”

The singing continued, still soft and secretive and eerie.

“Dogs have encompassed me
A company of evildoers have enclosed me
Like a lion they are at my hands and feet.”

They moved toward a door at the back left of the room. Luther opened it, just a crack. Then a little wider. Then pushed it open all the way, the door creaked as it eased forward. They stepped through into a small bedroom, as bare and sparse as the room they’d just left. There was a single black woman, her entire body illuminated by the one lamp in the room. She couldn’t have been much more than four foot eight or nine. And she was rail thin, almost skeletal. Her wrist bones jutting out well beyond the sides of her hands. Her elbows came practically to a point. And the skin covering her shoulder and collarbone was stretched so tight as to be practically clear.