Lonergan closed the cruiser door and turned to Butler. He slapped his partner’s thigh and chortled. “I wasn’t out of bed yet when the phone rang.” He grinned. “It was Roland Burroughs himself! Your mayor!”
Butler turned off the ignition. “You’re shittin’ me?”
“No. Wanted me to know that my resolute action at the Communist meeting was exactly what this police force has been needing. Best public relations thing that’s happened to Shiloh in forty years. Wants me come to the White Citizens Council meeting Thursday night. His guest. Thinks the gentlemen at the Shiloh Club would enjoy meeting a Shiloh policeman who’s not afraid to do what’s got to be done.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Finally gonna let one of the Klan meet the country club boys!”
Butler grinned. “Leave your white sheet at home, buddy. He knows you got it. His guest! Those white glove types don’t invite us lower-order grunts for drinks ’less there’s a reason. What’s the reason?
“If it ain’t admiration, maybe it’s politics, partner. Be nice to me. I could be your next boss!”
“Dropping that Bronko bastard sure turned you on, pal. They gonna make you Pope?”
“You can kiss my ring, Butler.”
“And you can kiss my ass, Lonergan. When’s your truck gonna be fixed up? I don’t plan on being your chauffeur.”
Lonergan stretched luxuriously and lit a Camel from the crumpled pack in his breast pocket. “Preacher called, said he checked the trucks at Kilbrew’s and they’ll be ready tomorrow morning. The holy man is still pissed off that we didn’t take down that Communist whorehouse. Wants to know who shot out our tires for the Devil. I told him that it was probably Bronko. He said it was too many shots for one sniper. That was the preacher’s specialty in the Bulge in ’45. At least two guns, he said.”
“So what does the old bastard want us to do?”
“Burn out the Freedom House and all those Satan vipers, he said.
Burn ’em out or they’re gonna kill us. Find ’em.” He stared at Butler as he blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke. “The preacher’s a mean prick. We don’t want to be on his shit list, partner.”
“And?”
“And maybe we should find who ruined his party.”
The sun was just starting to touch the tops of the trees behind the deserted Fatback’s Platter when Dennis Haley parked in the clearing behind Nefertiti’s cottage. He scanned the yard and noted it was safely out of sight from the highway. He paused, listening to the cooing of a mourning dove back in the woods, then walked to the door and turned the knob. Hearing the rush of the shower, he grinned and stepped inside. He folded his long frame into the one easy chair and turned it to face the bathroom door. He was lighting a cigar when Nefertiti, with only a towel wrapped around her hair, stopped abruptly at the bathroom door.
Looking past the flame of his match, Haley lazily let his eyes move across the shining and sumptuous burnt sienna landscape of the woman.
She answered his stare without blinking, standing motionless. “You almost done, Dennis?” Her voice was flat. “Learned a long time ago that a boy with a hard-on can’t be kept waitin’ too long. Looks like you been waitin’ too long.”
“You can tell from over there?” He put his cigar on the edge of the table and opened his arms wide. “I think you ought to be a lot closer ’fore you rush to judgment.” His smile was fixed, but his voice was commanding. “I mean now, Nefertiti.”
She remained standing, but began to dry her hair with the towel, then slowly moved the towel, caressing the drops of water from her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. When she was done she moved past him and stretched out on the bed, her eyes locked on his. “You just walk in the door? That’s it?”
“That’s it, Nefertiti. I just walk in the door. And you welcome me. Simple.”
“Funny,” she said. “I took you for the sheriff, not my handy man.” Her mocking voice crooned:
“Why, he shakes my ashes, greases my griddle,
chimes my butter and he strokes my fiddle,
my man is such a handy man. . . .”
His voice was angry now. “I think you should remember that. The sheriff. The honky who lets you operate on this lily pad, case you forgot. Your handy man is now very dead, Nefertiti. Too dumb to live. No hard-on at all. So you may just have to settle for a fine white stallion who appreciates what you’ve got, you black bitch.”
“Someone like the sheriff.”
“Spitting image.” Without another word he unfastened his holster, placed it next to the cigar on the table, and began to undress.
“You gonna tell me what happened to Stanley?” The gaze from the bed was steady.
“Lesson for you, Nefertiti. He didn’t have the sense to do what I told him. And it got him killed.” He dropped his clothes on the floor and poured two glasses of whisky as he watched her in the mirror. “Your handy man thought he was a black Polack Wyatt Earp, riding into town and confronting the bad guys, all against my orders. Pulled his gun on Jimmy Mack, who was making a speech at the mass meeting.”
Her eyes were wide. “Bronko was going to shoot him?”
“The Newsweek reporter thought so and came running to have me stop it. I sent my best cop, Lonergan, inside to get the dumb bastard out, and the next thing I knew Bronko was dead and the FBI was all over my back. You know what I’m going to have to deal with now? Christ!” He approached the bed carrying the drinks. “Your handy man was hired to cover my ass, Nefertiti, not to lay my woman. And now I’ve got to find a new messenger who won’t mess with what’s mine.”
She emptied her glass. “Like me.”
He raised his glass in an elaborate toast. “Like my sepia Queen of the Nile.” She was silent as he sat heavily on the edge of the bed. His deep voice throbbed in the stuffy room. “So this is how the drill is going to go from now on. I’m gonna have Harold Butler start handling the door here at Fatback’s and then bringing me the rent.”
“You’re crazy. Everybody knows he’s Klan, Dennis. You think he’s not going to have trouble at our door?”
“Butler can take care of himself.” He knelt on the bed, staring down at her as he opened his arms wide. “And he’ll take care of me, too. Unlike your handy man, he won’t even try to get in this bed, Nefertiti. Unlike your sheriff, he can’t stand niggers.”