The Great Santini (54 page)

"It's a nigger, Ben! It's a goddam nigger!"

"Jesus Christ! Let's get out of here!"

They sprinted down the dirt road, Ben taking a commanding lead with every stride, until he heard Sammy trip over a stump and somersault into an oleander bush. He went back and pulled Sammy up, holding his elbow, and they resumed their headlong flight away from the parked car.

Entering the Cadillac with equal desperation from two sides, they were soon accelerating down the beach road and back on the highway that headed from town.

"Whoopee!" Sammy said. "We just got hold of a real important piece of information. We have just seen Deputy Sheriff Palmer putting it to a colored woman, also known locally as a nigger, in the back seat of his patrol car out here in Dumfuck, Egypt. That is what I call a real important piece of information."

"I don't think it's so important. I'm just glad as hell to be getting out of there alive."

"Man, we got a lot of planning to do."

"Planning for what?"

"I figure Jehovah put us out there tonight for a reason, Ben. He wants us to punish Junior Palmer for his transgressions against the God of Abraham. Now while we are figuring out how to punish Deputy Palmer we must also figure out how we can profit by this little piece of good fortune. We are probably the only people in the world that know about Deputy Palmer and his weakness for dark meat."

"So what? Best we forget it right away, too."

"Forget it! Are you crazy, Ben? The way I see it, we accidentally stepped into high cotton back there. This is a real chance to pick up a little cash dough."

"You don't mean blackmail?"

"No, mercy me," Sammy said, shrinking back in mock horror. "Wash my mouth out with horse piss if I mean blackmail. We are just going to have Deputy Palmer invest in a little occupational insurance. If he wants us to keep our loud little yaps closed, then he can grease the palm with a few measly little greenbacks. That way he can protect that silver badge he's so proud of."

"I don't like one word that you've been using pretty freely, Sammy. It's a pronoun that you keep throwing in. It's plural. It's the word 'we.' I want you to change this pronoun to the first person singular. Then I can enjoy this plot much more."

"Man, we're in this together, Ben. We're partners because we saw this together. I wouldn't think of making money off this without splitting it with you."

"Oh, no, I insist that you take it all for yourself. I wouldn't think of cutting you out of any earnings you make off this, especially since I don't want to end up dead or in prison."

"This is foolproof, Ben, and we can have a little fun making that jerk-off sweat for a couple of days. I was thinking of asking for twenty-five dollars, but I think I might just up the ante to a cool fifty."

"That's a lot of money, Sammy."

"We are just agents of God picked out of all humanity to perform this unpleasant task. Do you think I like the fact that I have to do this, Ben?"

"I think you love it."

"I eat it up," Sammy cackled. "Now help me compose the letter. 'Dear Deputy Palmer, comma.' Or should I put a colon, do you think, Ben? You're the English star."

"A comma's O.K."

"'If you want it to remain a secret that you were seen copulating with a woman of color,' Hey, how do you like that phrase? 'A woman of color,' eh, Ben?"

"You're a poet, Sammy."

"'Bring fifty dollars and place it,' Goddam, where will we have him leave it?"

"Why don't you have him drop it off in your mailbox?"

"Oh, sure, Ben, you ever thought of getting a job as a guidance counselor?" Sammy said, driving in silence for several minutes as he considered a suitable drop-off point. "There," he finally said, pointing at the water tower that served the residents of St. Catherine's Island, the first and the largest of the sea islands separating Ravenel from the mainland. "I'll have him tape the money on the catwalk at the top of that water tower. Hell, yes, then there won't be any monkey business."

"Let me know how it turns out," Ben said.

"Hey, you'll go with me, won't you, Ben? Shoot, we won't keep the money or anything. We'll give it to charity. I know one charitable organization that plans to keep Sammy Wertzberger drunk from now until graduation night."

"I'll come along and watch, Sammy. But this whole thing is your idea."

"You'll drool when I'm folding the fifty loaves of bread into my wallet too. And then for the rest of the evening you'll probably just sit there in awe of me and my master criminal mind."

"Maybe I should get at least half of what you get, Sammy. After all, you're going to have to bribe me to keep me from telling Junior Palmer that you blackmailed him."

"Then we are partners in crime?" Sammy said.

"Partners," Ben answered.

Three times Sammy drove past the water tower on St. Catherine's Island to make sure that no one was lying in wait to apprehend the author of the blackmail note. Satisfied, he extinguished his headlights and hid the car in a natural cul-de-sac on the edge of the forest. Then both he and Ben scouted the terrain beneath the water tower half expecting the tubercular, sallow face of Junior Palmer to appear as an apparition before the long climb to the catwalk could begin. But they found nothing to either arouse their suspicions or allay their fears. Sammy hauled himself up on the ladder first and began climbing slowly. Ben followed him, staying four or five rungs behind his friend. At first they ascended in a dead silence.

"I wish there was a moon tonight," Ben said.

"Are you crazy?" Sammy whispered in reply. "Then some dope would see us climbing up this thing and every cop for a hundred miles would be there when we were climbing down."

"You sure that fifty dollars is going to be up here?" Ben asked.

"It better be," Sammy answered," or Junior Palmer's name is going to be spelled S-H-I-T by tomorrow morning. Of course it'll be here. You know he must have had a cow when he got that note."

"Where'd you leave it?"

"Under his windshield wiper. I hid and watched when he came out of the jail and read the note. There's nothing but gold at the end of this rainbow."

"God, I feel like I'm high enough already to be climbing a rainbow. This thing is a lot higher than it looks from the ground."

Both Ben and Sammy were breathing hard now. Ben felt a slight quivering in his thighs as though sinew had turned to gelatin; his knees felt vulnerable, even collapsible, the higher up the ladder he went. His wrists began to ache from grasping each rung too tightly. His hands were slick and untrustworthy. Looking down and to his left, he saw Ravenel shimmering across the river, the white yachts gleaming under marina lights, and shrimp boats ghostly below their nets. The higher he climbed, the more subject to delusion Ben became. He was teased only slightly by the phantoms of vertigo, but slightly nevertheless. All was delusory. The steel ladder was made of paper, of silk, of quicksilver, of air. Sammy would disappear. The ladder would climb toward infinitude. Ben would feel himself falling. Then he would stop climbing and look up at Sammy. He would set his bearings on Sammy's behind like a pilot would fix his eye on the horizon. Then he could resume climbing.

"Why couldn't you have had him tape the money at the bottom of the railroad trestle or leave it beneath the bridge, Sammy?" Ben said, anxious to begin a dialogue again.

"No challenge in that. This was the most romantic place I could think of."

"If you wanted a challenge, you could have had him tape it on Coach Spinks's left testicle," Ben said.

"Now there's a challenge," Sammy agreed.

"How was your date with Emma Lee last night?" Ben asked. "You haven't told me a thing about it."

"I think it's love, son. I think she's absolutely out of her mind in love with that suave, latin Romeo, Sammy Wertzberger."

"Well, she's only human. Even if she is a preacher's daughter."

"She talked about books the whole night. I felt like I was out with you and Mary Anne. But later on the old mover sprang into action. She was inexperienced, but Casanova was very gentle."

"Did you kiss her good night?"

"Kiss her good night! Are you kidding? Sometimes you are such an innocent, Ben. No I didn't kiss her good night. But it will all come in good time. You don't use the Bohemian Mountain Approach on a girl like Emma Lee."

"God, it's high up here. I can see the runway at the goddam air station."

"We're almost to the top," Sammy's voice said above him. "Almost to the end of the rain . . . "Then Sammy's voice stopped abruptly. And Sammy stopped.

"What's wrong, Sammy?" Ben asked. "Is something wrong?"

A boy with a shotgun stuck against Sammy's throat said, "Yeah, boy. Something's bad wrong. "Ben recognized the voice. It belonged to Red Pettus.

Far below him, Ben saw the revolving light of a police car spinning in a slow, malevolent circle.

They stood in a bare room, handcuffed together, as Palmer unloaded shells from his automatic shotgun. He had paid Red Pettus ten dollars and sent him home as soon as the patrol car had pulled within sight of the jail. The only thing Sammy had been able to say to Ben since their capture was that" Red and Junior are third cousins. "Ben had said," How many million cousins does Red have?" but the opportunity for speech had died a swift death.

Now Junior Palmer stared at the two boys, a reptilian coldness in his eyes that reminded Ben of his mother's warnings. She had always told him to beware the law behind closed doors, the yellow-toothed men behind silver badges who had been betrayed by their chromosomes and their birth. She would talk of power as a yeast that could activate a malevolence that no force on earth could overcome once it had begun. Beware the feral, washed-out, hare-lipped genes that sculpted the occasional unfathomable barbarisms of the poor white South. Beware of the men I have protected you from knowing, she had said. And would say again, Ben knew, after this night.

"You boys got me between a stone and a hard place," Palmer said, his voice a whine.

"It was just a joke, Junior," Sammy said. "Honest, it was just a joke."

"Then how come I don't see nothin' funny in it, Sammy? How come I ain't fuckin' laughin' one tiny little bit."

"O.K., it was a lousy joke," Sammy said.

"Now, Sammy, I got me a big problem. Your daddy's been in this town too long and knows too many people and might just run his mouth in too many of the wrong places. You understand me? I can't afford nobody asking no questions about tonight because even though you boys falsely accused me of doin' somethin' I would never do, just the mention of this kind of trash can kill a man in this town. This town's all mouth sometime. You boys see what I mean?"

"Yes, sir," they both said.

"Now, what did you boys see out there at the beach?"

"Nothing; we didn't see a thing, Junior," Sammy said.

"Nothing, sir," Ben answered.

"Now what makes you think I was spending time with some blue-gummed nigger girl?"

"It must have been my imagination, Junior," Sammy said.

Walking slowly around the table, Junior lit himself a cigarette, inhaled deeply, blew smoke into Sammy's face, then drove a fist into the boy's solar plexus. Sammy went to his knees, emitting desperate sounds of strangulation as he tried to catch his breath.

"Don't you ever call me 'Junior,' Jew. You call me 'Mr. Deputy.' Or you call me 'sir' but don't you ever call me by my name again," he hissed, walking back toward the desk where he sat down and threw a leg over the arm of his chair. "Now my big problem, the way I figure it, is this. I can only keep one of you boys because I'll have to answer too many questions if I keep both of you in here. Now Red don't know nothin' because I didn't tell him nothin'. The only people in the world that knows about this alleged incident is us three. Or have you told anybody else?"

"We haven't told anybody, sir," Ben said.

"Well that's mighty kind of you, Mr.—. What's your name again, boy?"

"Meecham, sir. Ben Meecham."

"That's mighty thoughty of you, Mr. Meecham," he grinned, showing his yellow teeth. He gazed down at Sammy who had just begun breathing with some degree of regularity again.

"Sammy, I been shoppin' at your father's Jewstore for a long time, now haven't I?"

"Yes, Mr. Deputy."

"And me and Suzie still go to the Jewstore for a lot of stuff even though it's a lot cheaper at the Piggly-Wiggly, ain't that right?"

"Yes, Mr. Deputy."

"Now I don't want to hear no talk around the Jewstore of you ever being here. I don't want your daddy to know or your mama or nobody else. I don't want your daddy calling up no councilman or no sheriff asking no questions. You understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Deputy."

"Fine. That's nice. Now you get your Jew ass out this door and if I ever hear about you talking about me and a nigger at the beach, I'm gonna circumcise you just one more time for good measure. You understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Deputy."

"I mean do you understand?" Palmer screamed, coming across the table and pulling Sammy by the collar until they were nose to nose.

"Yes, Mr. Deputy. But you got to know this was all my fault. Ben just came along for the ride."

"That's too fuckin' bad. He came. Now you get out of this jail."

Unlocking the handcuffs, Palmer began pushing Sammy toward the front door of the jail. When he reached the outer office beyond the interrogation room where Ben now stood in a despairing paralysis, the deputy kicked Sammy in the buttocks and sent him sprawling down the front steps. "Not a word to anyone, Jew."