Outside Morgan Blake’s automotive shop the Georgia sun beat on the pavement, glaring up into the work bay where Morgan was replacing the fuel pump in a 1932 Chevy. It was just noon. He had pulled the Chevy onto one of the two lifts, but the lift was not raised. He was bent over the engine, his sandy hair tucked under a black cotton baseball cap, his lean, tanned face smeared with grease. He was priming the carburetor with gas when, from the other side of the upright hood, a man laughed. There was a long pause, as Morgan rose up. He stood unmoving, at the man’s unwelcome voice.
“Hey there, Morgy. Long time no see, Morgy boy.”
He hadn’t heard Brad Falon come in, that was Falon’s way, walking silently on soft shoes so you didn’t know he was there. At the first sound of his voice, Morgan’s whole being went wary. Falon used to practice that silent walk when they were kids, slipping up on him—or slipping up on Becky, which neither she nor Morgan had liked. Even when they were only little kids, that had given him the creeps. He looked across the Chevy engine at Falon. There was no smile on the man’s narrow face or in his close-set eyes. Across in the other bay, the farther one from the office, the new mechanic kept on working, paying no attention to the visitor, the tall, rail-lean, towheaded young man cleaning the plugs of a Ford truck, as oblivious of Falon as if he’d been invisible.
“What do you want?” Morgan said. “I heard you were in town, that you were out of prison again.” He stood silently looking the man over. Everything about Falon stirred up a part of Morgan’s life that he wanted only to forget. “I don’t want you around here, Brad. What do you want?” he repeated.
Falon’s narrow smile was no more than a grimace. His voice was hoarse, thin, and rough as he tried to make it jovial. “Hey, Morgy boy! Don’t say you’re not glad to see me, that’s not good Southern manners! It’s me! Falon, your old buddy!” He moved around the Chevy and slapped Morgan on the shoulder, his grin no more than an animal sneer. Morgan stepped back away from him, turned back to the engine, and set the last mixture screw onto the carburetor.
“Hey, I just got out of bed, Morgy. Couldn’t get my car started, had to leave it at my girlfriend’s.” He yawned hugely, and pushed back his ruffled hair. “Car sounds like something broke off, loose and clattering. I’m afraid to try it again, it sounds like hell.”
Morgan said nothing.
“You know I don’t know anything about motors. I had to walk the seven blocks over here, and this humidity’s got me, I’m not used to this weather anymore, I feel like a ton of lead weighing me down. Can you run me back over there, and have a look? I know you can fix it. I ain’t even had breakfast yet. Come on, Morgy, I’ll buy you breakfast. Or lunch, we’ll go out to Sparky’s for ribs, we can do that before you fix my car.”
“I don’t leave the shop at noon, Falon. Albert can run over there, Weiss is a better mechanic than I am.” He looked across to Albert. Albert straightened up then, laid down his tools, and pulled off his canvas apron.
But Falon shook his head and took Morgan by the arm. “Come on, Morgy. Everyone has to take a lunch break. We’ll just run out to Sparky’s, be back in half an hour. Your car parked close, here?”
“Can’t do it, Falon. If you want your car fixed, Albert will take a look at it. No one can eat at Sparky’s in half an hour.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Falon said agreeably. “Well, then, just run me over to get my car, I haven’t seen you in a long time. I don’t know Albert Weiss, here, but I know you’re tops with a Ford. Just for old times’ sake?”
“Sorry,” Morgan said, and turned away. When, in high school, he’d finally distanced himself from Falon, much of the reason was that Falon kept coming on to Becky. Becky hated him. She had kept away from him then, and while Morgan was overseas. According to Becky, Falon had made no trouble for her, while he was gone, but still Morgan’s distrust of Falon ran deep.
“Come on,” Falon repeated. “For old times. I’ve got something to tell you, Morgy. Something I think you’ll want to hear.”
“I’m done with that crap,” Morgan said, and began wiping off his tools, slipping each into its slot in their black cloth case.
“This isn’t anything like that,” Falon said. “This is . . .” He was silent until Morgan turned to look at him. “This is about Becky,” Falon said. “About Becky and that property outside of town that Becky’s mother owns and maybe about your little girl.”
Morgan began cleaning his hands with paper towels. “You’re giving me a bunch of crap.”
“That land next to Grant’s farm?” Falon said. “Along beside the Dixie Highway?”
“What has that to do with Becky? What are you trying to pull?”
“Not a thing,” Falon said easily. “Just a bit of information I thought might interest you. I was in the courthouse yesterday looking up the old deeds on my parents’ house. I ran across a piece of information I thought you’d like to know about.”
“So, what is it?”
“Come take a look at my car, and I’ll explain it.”
Morgan stared at Falon. “Have you seen Becky, or called her?” But then he wished he hadn’t said that, hadn’t let Falon know that it would even concern him. Not long before Falon was sent to prison, he came on to Becky real strong. She blew him off, told him to leave her alone, but that had hardly fazed Falon. Now, Falon glanced toward Albert as if he didn’t want Albert to overhear.
“Whatever you have to say, Albert’s welcome to listen,” Morgan said.
Falon just looked at him, his stare pinched and stubborn. “What I have to tell you is about Becky and Sammie.”
“So?”
“It’s private.”
Despite how Falon lied, his words stirred a cold chill in Morgan. Uneasily, and knowing better, he fished his car keys from his pocket. “I’ll take a quick look. Then maybe I’ll send Albert over, he might have to tow it in.”
Falon turned, slid some change into the Coke machine, and fished out two bottles of Coke. Opening them, he handed one to Morgan and then headed out through the big shop doors.
Morgan’s ’38 Dodge was parked half a block down, under a shade tree where it wouldn’t take up space in the shop’s small parking area. He had bought it pretty badly wrecked, had done the body work himself, had put in a new block, had had it painted and upholstered in exchange for automotive work. Now it was almost like new, and it ran like new. He hoped no one saw him with Falon, after all the trouble they’d been in together in high school and then Falon’s subsequent arrests. In a small town, everyone knew your business. If anyone saw him with Falon, they’d be sure to pass the word.
But what could just a few minutes hurt? Drive a few blocks, look at a stalled car right out in public? Auto repair was what he did for a living. And who knew, maybe what Falon had to tell him would be worth hearing, maybe something he’d be glad later to know about. Falon had worked in real estate for a while, years back, somewhere south of Atlanta. He knew Becky’s mother bought and sold land from time to time, always with a little profit. Caroline had bought that property out on the Dixie Highway some four years ago, with an eye to rising land prices. She had leased the land to John Truet, who farmed it and the adjoining ten acres. Caroline’s will left the land to Morgan and Becky, or in a trust for Sammie if they were gone.
Morgan didn’t know what papers Falon might have seen in the courthouse, but there were stories in town of land swindles where tax records had been falsified and land bought out from under the legal owners. He had heard rumors, as well, about some kind of land development along the Dixie Highway, stories that had stirred idle talk around town. He supposed he could go on over to the courthouse himself, or Becky could, and find out what Falon was getting at. But it might take a lot of searching to come up with what Falon already knew, if there was any truth in his words. If there was something afoot about that property, Caroline needed to know.
But still he was edgy, his common sense telling him to take care.
Morgan’s Dodge was burning hot inside, even under the shade of the oak and with the windows down. He let Falon talk him into a quick sandwich, just a few blocks up the street. But they’d barely pulled away from the curb when Falon, reaching down to straighten his cuffs, spilled his Coke all over Morgan’s new upholstery.
Morgan shoved his own Coke at Falon to hold, grabbed a towel from the backseat, and began wiping up the spill. He scrubbed the stain as best he could, swearing to himself. He drove on quickly to the next gas station to rinse out the towel and scrub the seat better, and dried it with paper towels.
When he got back in the driver’s seat, hot and angry, Falon handed him his Coke, and he drained it. “Skip the sandwich, Falon. Let’s look at your car, I have to get back. What’s this information you’re so eager to tell me?”
“Tell you after we look at the car,” Falon said. Of course he didn’t apologize about the Coke. He was quiet as Morgan turned down Laurel, heading for the Graystone Apartments where Falon said his car was parked.
They were several blocks from the Graystone when Morgan began to feel uncertain of distances. Puzzled, he eased off the gas and went on more slowly, driving with care. The spaces around him seemed out of kilter, the distance from one corner to the next seemed all wrong. What was the matter with him? Other cars on the street appeared foggy, they were too near to him and then unnaturally far away. He nearly sideswiped an oncoming truck, and the driver blasted his horn angrily. When driving became too difficult, he pulled over, was surprised to see he was pulling up in front of the Graystone. He felt sick and dizzy, he was so confused he couldn’t remember how to turn off the engine. He managed at last, clinging to the steering wheel.
“That’s it,” Falon said, watching him, “that black Ford.”
Morgan looked blearily across the street at the uncertain line of cars. Light shimmered off them as if from giant heat waves. He guessed one of them was black, and maybe it was a Ford. He wasn’t sure he had killed his engine, but when he looked down at the key, trying to figure it out, trying to hear if the engine was running, the dashboard heaved up at him, blackness swept him, and he knew no more.
Days later, trying to reconstruct those moments, Morgan would not be able to remember arriving at the apartments, would not be able to bring back anything after pulling away from the curb near the automotive shop and then Falon spilling his Coke. Everything after that was a dizzy blurr. But later, sitting on his cot in the jail cell as slowly his mind cleared, he would remember Sammie’s nightmare, of him being shoved behind bars by men he knew and trusted, and he knew Sammie would suffer the most. He worried far more over his little girl than over what would happen to him, even if, as the cops said, he could go to prison for the rest of his life. He had no idea what had occurred to put him here. None of it made sense, and no one would tell him anything more. What he didn’t understand was why Sammie had been sucked into this pain. What kind of fate was this, after they had been parted so long during his years in the Pacific, what fate so cruel it would seek to destroy them now?