I WAS AWAKENED BY a knock at my door shortly after 9 A.M. Instinctively, I felt myself reaching for a gun that was no longer there. I wrapped a towel around my waist, then padded softly to the door and peered through the peephole.
Six feet six inches of attitude, razor-sharp dress sense, and gay Republican pride looked me square in the eye.
“I could see you looking out,” said Louis as I opened the door. “Shit, don’t you ever go to the movies? Guy knocks, skinny-ass character actor looks out, guy puts barrel of gun to glass and shoots skinny-ass in the eye.” He was dressed in a black linen suit, offset with a white collarless shirt. A wave of expensive eau de cologne followed him into the room.
“You smell like a French whore,” I told him.
“If I was a French whore, you couldn’t afford me. By the way, you maybe could use a little makeup yourself.”
I paused, saw myself in the mirror by the door, and looked away again. He was right. I was pale, and there were dark smudges under my eyes. My lips were cracked and dry, and I could taste something metallic in my mouth.
“I picked up something,” I said.
“No shit. The fuck you pick up, the plague? They bury people look better than you.”
“What have you got, Tourette’s? You have to swear all the time?”
He raised his hands in a backing-off gesture. “Hey, glad I came. Nice to be appreciated.”
I apologized. “You checked in?”
“Uh-huh, ’cept some motherfucker—sorry, but, shit, he was a motherfucker—try to hand me his bags at the door.”
“What did you do?”
“Took them, put them in the trunk of a cab, gave the guy fifty bucks, and told him to take them to the charity store.”
“Classy.”
“I like to think so.”
I left him watching television while I showered and dressed, then we headed down to Diana’s on Meeting for coffee and a bite to eat. I ate half a bagel, then pushed it away.
“You got to eat.”
I shook my head. “It’ll pass.”
“It’ll pass and you be dead. So how we doin’?”
“Same as usual: dead people, a mystery, more dead people.”
“Who we lost?”
“The boy. His guardians. Maybe Elliot Norton.”
“Shit, don’t sound like we got anybody left. Anyone hires you better leave you your fee in their will.”
I filled him in on all that had occurred, leaving out only the black car. That I didn’t need to burden him with.
“So what you gonna do?”
“Push a stick into the beehive and rustle up some bees. The Larousses are hosting a party today. I think we should avail ourselves of their hospitality.”
“We got an invite?”
“Has not having one ever stopped us before?”
“No, but sometimes I just like to be invited to shit, you know what I’m sayin’, instead of havin’ to bust in, get threatened, irritate the nice white folks, put the fear of the black man on them.”
He paused, seemed to think for a while about what he had just said, then brightened.
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Real good,” he agreed.
We drove most of the way to the old Larousse plantation in separate vehicles, Louis parking his car about half a mile from the gates before joining me for the rest of the journey. I asked him about Angel.
“He workin’ on a job.”
“Anything I should know about?”
He looked at me for a long time.
“I don’t know. Maybe, but not now.”
“Uh-huh. I see you made the news.”
He didn’t reply for a couple of seconds. “Angel tell you somethin’?”
“Just gave me the name of the town. You waited a long time to settle that score.”
He shrugged. “They was worth killin’, they just wasn’t worth travelin’ too far to kill.”
“And since you were on your way down here anyway…”
“I figured I’d stop by,” he finished. “Can I go now, Officer?”
I let it drop. At the entrance to the Larousse estate, a tall man in a flunky’s suit waved us down.
“Can I see your invitations, gentlemen?”
“We didn’t get invitations,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure somebody is expecting us.”
“The names?”
“Parker. Charlie Parker.”
“By two,” added Louis, helpfully.
The guard spoke into his walkie-talkie, out of earshot from us. We waited, two or three cars lining up behind us, until the guard finished talking.
“You can go ahead. Mr. Kittim will meet you at the parking area.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Louis. I had told him about my encounter with Bowen and Kittim at the Antioch rally.
“Told you this would work,” I said. “That’s why I’m a detective.” It struck me then, my worries about the consequences of the Caina incident aside, that I was already feeling better since Louis had arrived. That wasn’t too surprising, since I now had a gun, thanks to him, and I was pretty certain that Louis had at least one more on his person.
We followed half a mile of live oaks, palmettos, and palms, much of it overhung with Spanish moss. Cicadas chirped in the trees and droplets from the morning’s now departed rain kept up a steady rhythmic patter on the roof and road until we emerged from the trees and onto an expanse of green lawn. Another white-gloved flunky directed us to park the car beneath one of a number of tarpaulins erected to shelter the vehicles from the sunlight, the canvas shifting slightly in the currents of cold air cast by one of a number of huge industrial air conditioners arrayed on the grass. Long tables had been arranged along three sides of a square and covered by starched linen tablecloths. Huge amounts of food had been arrayed upon them while black servants in pristine white shirts and trousers hovered anxiously, waiting to serve guests. Others moved through the crowds already gathered on the lawn, offering champagne and cocktails. I looked at Louis. He looked at me. Apart from the servants, he was the only person of color present. He was also the only guest dressed in black.
“You should have worn a white jacket,” I said. “You look like an exclamation mark. Plus, you might have picked up a few bucks in tips.”
“Look at them brothers,” he said, despairingly. “Ain’t nobody here heard of Denmark Vesey?”
A dragonfly glided across the grass by my feet, hunting for prey among the blades. There were no birds to prey on him in turn, at least none that I could see or hear. The only sign of life came from a single heron standing in a patch of marshland to the northeast of the house, the waters around it seemingly stilled by a carpet of algae. Beside it, amid rows of oak and pecans, stood the remains of small dwellings, equidistantly spaced, their tiled roofs now gone and the miscast and broken bricks used in their construction weathered by the elements over the century and a half that had probably passed since their original establishment. Even I could guess what it represented: the remains of a slave street.
“You’d think they’d have knocked them down,” I said.
“That’s heritage,” said Louis. “Right up there with flying the Confederate flag and keeping one pillowcase clean at all times. Y’know, for special wear.”
The Larousses’s old plantation house was pre-Revolutionary redbrick, a Georgian-Palladian villa dating back to the mid-eighteenth century. Limestone steps led up a set of twin staircases to a marble-floored portico. Four Doric pillars supported the gallery that ran across the front of the house, four windows on either side over two levels. Elegantly dressed couples crowded in the shade of the porch.
Our attention was distracted by a party of men moving quickly across the lawn. They were all white, all had earpieces, and all were sweating beneath their dark suits, despite the efforts of the air conditioners. The only exception was the man at the center of the group. Kittim wore a blue blazer over tan trousers and penny loafers, his white shirt buttoned to the neck. His head and face were largely concealed by the baseball cap and sunglasses, but they couldn’t conceal the blade wound that had been torn in his right cheek.
Atys. That was why the T-bar cross had not been on his body when he was found.
Kittim stopped about five feet away from us and raised his hand. Instantly, the men around him paused, then spread out in a semicircle surrounding us. No words were spoken for a moment. His attention shifted from Louis to me, then back again. His smile remained fixed in place, even when Louis spoke to him for the first time.
“What. The fuck. Are you?” asked Louis.
Kittim didn’t respond to him.
“This is Kittim,” I explained.
“Ain’t he the pretty one?”
“Mr. Parker,” said Kittim, still ignoring Louis. “We weren’t expecting you.”
“It was a last-minute decision,” I replied. “Some sudden deaths cleared my schedule.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Kittim. “I can’t help but notice that you and your colleague appear to be armed.”
“Armed.” I looked disapprovingly at Louis. “Told you it wasn’t that kind of party.”
“Never hurts to come prepared. Folks don’t take us seriously otherwise,” said Louis.
“Oh, I take you very seriously,” said Kittim, acknowledging him properly for the first time. “So seriously that I’d be grateful if you would come with us to the basement, where we can dispose of your weapons without alarming the other guests.”
Already I could see people casting curious looks in our direction. As if on cue, a string quartet struck up from the far side of the lawn. They were playing a Strauss waltz. How quaint.
“No offense, man, but we ain’t goin’ to no basement with you.” It was Louis.
“Then you’ll force us to take action.”
Louis’s eyebrow rose about half an inch. “Yeah, what you gonna do, kill us on the lawn? That’s gonna be some party, you do that. People be talking about it for a loooong time. ‘Hey, you remember Earl’s party, when those sweaty guys and the fucker with leprosy tried to take the guns away from those fellas that arrived late, and they drew down on them and Bessie Bluechip got all that blood on her dress? Man, how we laughed…’”
The tension was perceptibly rising. The men around Kittim were waiting for an indication from him on how to proceed, but he wasn’t moving. His smile remained fixed in place as if he’d died with it and then been stuffed and mounted on the lawn. I felt something roll down my back and pool at the base of my spine, and realized that the security guards weren’t the only ones who were sweating.
The tension was broken by a voice from the porch.
“Mr. Kittim,” it said. “Don’t keep our guests on the grass. Bring them up here.”
The voice came from Earl Jr., looking elegantly wasted in a blue double-breasted jacket and jeans pressed with the crease along the knee. His light hair was brushed forward to disguise his widow’s peak, and his lips seemed even fuller and more feminine than when last I saw him. Kittim inclined his head slightly, indicating we should do as requested, then he and his men fell into place behind and around us. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that we were about as welcome as bugs in the buffet, but the guests around us studiously pretended to ignore us. Even the servants didn’t look our way. We were led through the main doors and into a great hall floored with loblolly pine. Two drawing rooms opened up on either side, and a graceful double stairway led to the upper floor. The doors closed behind us and we were disarmed within seconds. They got two guns and a knife out of Louis. They seemed impressed.
“Look at you,” I said. “Two guns.”
“And a knife. I had to get the trousers cut special.”
Kittim moved around until he was standing by Earl Jr.’s side. Kittim had a shiny blue Taurus in his hand.
“Why are you here, Mr. Parker?” said Larousse. “This is a private party, the first such occasion since the death of my sister.”
“Why break out the champagne now? You have something to celebrate?”
“Your presence is not welcome here.”
“Somebody killed Atys Jones.”
“I heard. You’ll forgive me if I shed no tears.”
“He didn’t murder your sister, Mr. Larousse, but I suspect you already know that.”
“Why would you suspect that?”
“Because I think Mr. Kittim here probably tortured Atys before he killed him in an effort to find out who did. Because you think, as I do, that the person responsible for your sister’s death may also be responsible for the deaths of Landron Mobley, Grady Truett, the suicide of James Foster, and possibly the death of Elliot Norton.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He didn’t look surprised at the mention of Elliot’s name.
“I also think that Elliot Norton might have been trying to find out who was responsible as well, which was why he took on the Jones case, and I’m starting to think that he may have taken it on with your approval, maybe even your cooperation. Except he wasn’t making enough progress, so you took matters into your own hands after Mobley’s body was found.”
I turned to Kittim.
“Did you enjoy killing Atys Jones, Kittim? Did you enjoy shooting an old woman in the back?”
I saw the blow coming too late to react. His fist caught me in the hollow of my left temple and sent me sprawling to the ground. Louis twitched slightly, on the verge of movement, but froze with the sound of hammers cocking.
“You need to work on your manners, Mr. Parker,” said Kittim. “You can’t come in here and make accusations of that kind without incurring the consequences.”
I raised myself slowly onto my hands and knees. The punch had rattled me, and I felt bile rising into my throat. I gagged, then vomited.
“Oh dear,” said Larousse. “Now look what you’ve done. Toby, get somebody to clean that up.”
Kittim’s feet appeared beside me. “You’re a mess, Mr. Parker.” He squatted down so I could see his face. “Mr. Bowen doesn’t like you. Now I can see why. Don’t think that we’ve finished with you yet. Me, I’d be very surprised if you make it home alive out of South Carolina. In fact, I’d say the odds against it would be quite attractive, if I were a gambling man.”
The door in front of me opened, and a manservant entered. He didn’t appear to register the guns or the tension in the room. He simply knelt down as I stood unsteadily, and began to scrub the floorboards clean. He was followed by Earl Sr.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“Some uninvited guests, Mr. Larousse,” replied Kittim. “They’re about to leave.”
The old man barely glanced at him. It was clear that Larousse didn’t like Kittim and resented his presence in his house, yet still Kittim was here. Larousse said nothing to him and instead diverted his attention to his son, whose confidence immediately began to dissipate in his father’s presence.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“This is the investigator I spoke to at the hotel, the one hired by Elliot Norton to get Marianne’s nigger murderer off the hook,” stammered Earl Jr.
“Is that true?” asked the older man.
I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth.
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe that Atys Jones killed your daughter, but I will find out who did.”
“It’s not your business.”
“Atys is dead. So are the people who gave him sanctuary in their home. You’re right: finding out what happened isn’t my business. It’s more than that. It’s my moral obligation.”
“I would advise you to take your moral obligations elsewhere, sir. This one will lead you to ruin.” He turned to his son. “Have them escorted off my property.”
Earl Jr. looked to Kittim. The decision was clearly his to make.
After a pause to assert his authority, Kittim nodded to his men and they moved forward, their guns held discreetly by their sides so as not to alarm the guests when we left the house.
“And, Mr. Kittim,” added Earl Sr.
Kittim turned to look at him.
“In future, conduct your beatings elsewhere. This is my house and you are not a member of my staff.”
He shot a final harsh look at his son, then went out onto the lawn to rejoin his guests.
We were placed at the center of a circle of men and escorted to the car. Our weapons were placed in the trunk, minus their ammunition. Kittim leaned on the driver’s side window as I prepared to drive away. The smell of burning was so strong that I almost gagged again.
“Next time I see you will be the last,” he said. “Now take your porch monkey and get out of here.” He winked at Louis, then he patted the roof of the car and watched us drive away.
I touched my temple where Kittim’s punch had landed, and winced at the contact.
“You okay to drive?” asked Louis.
“Looked like Kittim was makin’ himself at home back there.”
“He’s there because Bowen wants him there.”
“Means Bowen got something on the Larousses, if his boy has the run of the house.”
“He called you a bad name.”
“I heard.”
“You seem to be taking it pretty calmly, all things considered.”
“Wasn’t worth dyin’ over. Least, not worth my dyin’ over. Kittim’s another matter. Like the man said, we be seein’ him again. It’ll wait.”
“You think you can stay with him?”
“Sure. Where you goin’?”
“To get a history lesson. I’m tired of being nice to people.”
Louis looked mildly surprised.
“Just how exactly you been definin’ ‘nice’ up to now?”