The Murderer Vine (19 page)

“I had to do lots of things in order to save enough money for tuition.”

“I had to do them too, Mr. Wilson. Do you find it gives you a sort of contempt for anyone lucky enough to be born rich?”

“Contempt, no. A little envy and a little pity.”

“Pity!”

“Sure. They’ll never know if they could have made it on their own. They’ll carry that problem all their lives. And I don’t have to worry about that. I got here by my own efforts. No one helped me. It might not look like much to a man with a great deal of wealth, like you, Mr. Carlyle, but it means a lot to me to be able to come down, on a project of my own, and collect tapes in order to get a Ph.D. And if I’m lucky I’ll publish it in book form, and I’ll become famous. In a very small circle, of course. Maybe not more than fifty people will understand what I’m doing. But they’re the ones whose respect I value the most.”

The little fire went out of his yellow pupils. They looked dead. He thought he had smelled live meat for a little while, but I must have convinced him I was nowhere. He tried again.

“You let Owen look good.”

I didn’t like that one. Right over the plate.

“The least one can do for a friend?”

This one had to be fielded right.

“I liked him in the beginning, Mr. Carlyle. But he got on my nerves soon enough. And I didn’t come down here to play with other men’s wives. I probably wouldn’t have reacted so violently if I hadn’t been drinking, but I have rigid standards.”

I may have pushed too much. The tiny little blaze in his eyes seemed to flare up again. He was extremely sensitive to tone and to nuance, damn him, and something must have struck him as a little bit off.

I didn’t like the drift at all. It reminded me of an afternoon several years ago. I was swimming between two cays down in the Bahamas. They were about five hundred yards apart. I took it slow. When I was a little over halfway across, a shark’s fin broke the surface about a hundred feet away. I was alone. I kept swimming at the same speed. Sharks become excited when they sense an irregular rhythm in a fish’s progress. It signifies to them that it is in distress and probably injured. And it’s the same with humans. So I kept the same steady pace. The shark kept swimming in concentric circles, gradually nearing. It was a hammerhead and about fifteen feet long.

It came closer and closer with each revolution. When it was about ten feet way, the shore was seventy-five feet distant. At fifty feet it brushed against my legs. Its skin was harsh as sandpaper and it was only later I discovered that it had neatly removed the top layer of skin and left the exposed layer oozing lymph and some blood. I thought it would turn and come in for the final charge, but for some reason it had held off.

Sharks were unpredictable. I felt the same way about Amory Blanding Carlyle.

I got in the Olds. The red flasher on the top was still turning.

“Good night, Mr. Amory.”

“Night, LeRoy. Night, Mr. Wilson.”

“Good night, sir.” I arranged my face in a pleasant smile. I kept it frozen into place while he stared at me with a cool smile. It only took the sheriff a few seconds to turn the car around, but they seemed like hours under that icy, calm stare. I didn’t like him. Not one single bit.

“Now you take Mr. Carlyle,” the sheriff began.

I wouldn’t, not even with a $30,600 owner-driven Rolls-Royce thrown in. How would you like living in a house with a full-grown cobra roaming around it who could sense your footsteps from the other end of the house, and who might come slithering over for a close look? You wouldn’t like it, and it made me a little uneasy with A.B.C. in the same county.

“Seems a smart man,” I said admiringly.

“Remember them No’th’n niggers come down here with that white boy from Ha’v’d? Stirrin’ up folks ’n’ all? Nothin’ I could do ’gainst their constitootional rights, which I am sworn to uphold’, but it don’t hurt to keep track of ’em. So’s to protect ’em. How could I keep track? Mr. Amory, he jus’ drove ’round the county ’n’ tole everyone who owed him money or whoever might be lookin’ for a loan from his bank or whoever worked for him to keep a lookout, an’ whenever them three boys drove by a farmhouse or gen’ral store or a gas station, someone would phone me at the police station. An’ Mr. Amory, he had me stay at the police station keepin’ track of them boys twenty-four hours a day until they disappeared.”

“You knew where they were all the time?”

“Put it down on the county map with a red tack. Place ’n’ time. We could figger where they was goin’ next jus’ by lookin’ at them red tacks. Like huntin’ rabbits. Once you know how a rabbit thinks an’ moves, you don’t have to follow his tracks, you jus’ go where you know he’ll be comin’.”

Three rabbits and a cobra.

Amory sure didn’t give me a good feeling. I felt as if a hot little jet had suddenly opened up in my stomach.

“When these kids came down an’ started makin’ trouble, Mr. Amory checked ’em out.”

I played admiring.

“How did he do that?”

“The FBI an’ the state police up where they came from. They didn’t have no records anywhere. Maybe they was too little to get their pictures took. But they all had their draft cards. I do believe they jus’ took off an’ went to Sweden or one of them countries that takes draft evaders. Sooner or later they are goin’ to write their daddies an’ fin’lly we’ll be shut of these reporters who come down an’ nose around.”

“Yes. We don’t like those draft evaders in Canada.”

“Then he asked some ex-CIA people to check out the boys after they disappeared. They got an office up in Washington. Two nice ol’ country boys from around Biloxi. They was dropped from the CIA because when they was in Thailand or maybe Malaysia, I forget which, they run across some Russian agents an’ they got rid of ’em without askin’ permission. So the king down there, he told ’em to get out. They come to Washington and opened their own agency. That was six, seven years ago. They got branches all over now.”

I wasn’t convinced that A.B.C. had asked the two nice old country boys to check out the disappearance. That smelled like a little smoke screen for my benefit. He might have asked them to check out the boys’ background.

LeRoy’s juicy little piece of information wasn’t tasty at all.

Some agents get dropped when their kill rate seems excessive or undertaken without prior consultation. Psychopaths do manage to get through the screening. They’re brilliant actors, and extremely intelligent, or they wouldn’t wind up being considered for the CIA to start with.

They’re the kind of people who get satisfaction from killing people. Very useful in wartime, but apt to be embarrassing in peacetime, unless very, very carefully held in check.

He lit a cigarette and offered me one. I took it and thanked him. He tossed his cigarette lighter back into the glove compartment. I saw a blackjack, handcuffs and a shiny pair of brass knuckles.

“I have to tell these reporters to stay off our back roads at night. People down here, they got somethin’ on their mind, they don’t call me. They get their rifles and settle it themselves. People up No’th, they don’t understan’ that.” He sighed. “Mighty nice of you to come along so peaceful, Mr. Wilson.”

“Not at all. I don’t like to put you in the middle and have a hysterical woman screaming at you.”

“ž’Preciate it.”

“Those brass knucks,” I said. “Confiscated?”

“Nope. Bought ’em.”

“You use them?”

“Sure.”

I must have looked startled.

He grinned. “Look, Mr. Wilson. Y’ ever cruise Nigger-town Sattidy night. You get a call from some bar. There’s a big thing goin’ on. Ten, maybe fifteen, smashin’ up the furniture. Not enough to shoot anyone about, an’ I’m alone. I look ’em over. If they ain’t got no switchblades, or they ain’t got a Sattidy-night special — ”

“What’s that?”

“That’s what we call the twenty-four-ninety-five thutty-two caliber pistol you c’n buy over at Meridian. Well, if they ain’t got one of those, I like to use the knucks. Trouble with the blackjacks, they got too much lead in them, an’ if you gets too excited, you might fracture a skull or two. With the knucks, you maybe break a jaw or nose, but ain’t no one dyin’ on you in the jail.”

He sounded friendly.

“You got to the club pretty quickly,” I said.

“I was cruisin’ close by. We got two cars coverin’ the nigger bars in Okalusa and we keep one close by the club on Sattidy nights. Some hysterical lady phoned an’ said you was killin’ each other. How does it feel to hit a real rich feller?”

“Pleasurable.”

He chuckled. “You ain’t been born rich, Mr. Wilson?”

“No.”

“That makes you ’bout the only barefoot boy in the country club.”

“Not anymore, I’m afraid. No more invitations.”

“Now, if you was talkin’ off the record, Mr. Wilson, what do you think of our rich folks?”

“They bore the living bejesus out of me.”

He laughed.

“Mr. Wilson, I never could understan’ how a grown man could stand around eatin’ them itty-bitty crackers with an itty-bitty dab of cheese at the parties they give. An’ them martinis with them olives, godalmighty, is that a drink for a grown man? How’s a man gonna get a good grip on his woman later on in the evenin’ with
that
under his belt?”

I laughed.

“How you comin’ along with your project, Mr. Wilson?”

“Not too good. Nobody interesting.”

“You’d do pretty fine to tape some of my friends. They’re interestin’. They’re a little cracked, some of ’em. There’s one man who collects snakes’ heads for bounties. Others. Tell you, Mr. Wilson, you come on down to
our
country club. It ain’t got a golf course, it ain’t got a swimmin’ pool onless you want to take a dive right into the river, which I wouldn’t advise, with all them moccasins. An’ once in a while a ’gator comes pokin’ along. It ain’t fancy, but a man c’n let down his hair an’ bay at the moon an’ eat catfish ’n’ hushpuppies ’n’ drink the best white mule you ever curled a tongue aroun’.”

“I heard about
that
white mule. It’ll heal your face without a scar.”

“Oh, you bin talkin’ to Ray.”

“That’s right. We met on the bus.”

“Yeah. He tole me. Lissen, Mr. Wilson, you want to come out? We’ll be real pleased. You talk to the boys an’ if you want, you come next time with your machine.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“All right. You won’t be able to drive back because you will be paralyzed. But we got a cot to sleep on till it’s safe for you to get in yore car. So you be sure to tell that nice Mrs. Wilson not to sit up an’ worry. You are goin’ to be all right in the sheriff’s custody. You come on over tomorrow night ’bout eight. You go past that nigger bait shack at Alexandria. Then you go right ’bout four miles to the right along the river road. Then you see a shack built out over the river on pilin’s.”

“I’ll be there.”

“No point takin’ you to the judge. Mrs. Brady’ll cool down when she sobers up. But if she don’t, will you come on over tomorrow to the jail an’ post bail?”

“Sure.”

He sighed with relief. We drove home in silence. He was a good, fast driver.

My car was parked in front of the house. Our light was on upstairs.

“That’s a fine woman you got, Mr. Wilson.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

We shook hands. He had a firm, cool grip. I watched him drive away. Much against my will I found myself liking him. Life could be simpler if we could hate our enemies. But life kept producing enemies who were easy to like.

Oh, the hell with it. I was tired. When I got upstairs, Kirby was gloating over her performance. She told me she was the hysterical woman who had phoned the sheriff.

“You?”

“Baby, I played all them organ stops tonight. I am
good.”

She was. She was damn good. But I was still smart enough to go to bed by myself.

It was a beat-up sign, all right. It looked like it had been scavenged from a pile of secondhand lumber. Someone had nailed a vertical post to it and had then lettered the words
CATFISH CLUB PRIVAT.

I turned in and drove a hundred feet. The winding road ended in a cleared space backed by cypress. There were five cars jammed together. One had the red dome light under which I had ridden earlier. The parking area was bordered by several badly trimmed logs. Then came a bank which sloped down to a dark-brown liquid which swelled up here and there.

The swellings were old cypress knees. A board sidewalk had been built over the swamp. I followed it toward the Catfish Club.

The Club was a shack with weather-beaten gray wood sidings. It rested on top of several rickety pilings. The river slid among the pilings with a little hissing noise that had an unfortunate resemblance to a snake’s warning. Beyond each piling a tiny whirlpool formed, which drifted downriver with the current. The sky was getting dark and there was no wind.

I stood for a second on the top edge of the clumsily built walk and looked down into the mud. It moved just underneath me. It heaved upward. I gripped the railing hard.

Then it hopped. It was only a frog. I let my breath go out. Down there was the kind of country I’d feel comfortable walking through if I were five feet up in the air. Or wearing iron pants.

The sound of voices came from the shack. I knocked.

The sheriff’s voice said, “Now, Vince, you see who that can be.”

Vince opened the door. He wore a dirty apron and had long hair and a sour face. He held a frying pan in one hand and scratched the stubble on his chin.

“It’s that feller from up No’th,” he said, looking at me coldly.

“You invite him in.”

“I didn’t invite him here and I’ll be dad-blasted effen I’ll invite him in,” Vince said.

The sheriff came to the door. “Come in, Mr. Wilson,” he said. “Vince ain’t got good manners, but he sure cooks good catfish.”

I stepped in. Vince went back to the old iron stove and slammed the pan on top of it with a big clatter. The three men sitting around the scarred old table seemed embarrassed. They nodded to me and settled back in their old kitchen chairs.